Through  PaintedfPanes 

And  Other  Poems 


NOTE 

Most  of  the  poems  in  this  collection  have  been  taken 
from  "The  Dead  Calypso,"  "Beyond  the  Requiems," 
"  Cloistral  Strains,"  and  "  From  Crypt  and  Choir." 

All  the  unsold  copies  and  plates  of  these  books  were 
destroyed  by  the  great  .fire. 

Several  long'  poems,  and  some  sonnets,  rondeaus,  and 
other  minor  forms,  appear  here  for  the  first  time. 


THE 
UNIVERSITY 

OF 


Photograph  by  Arnold  Genthe,  San  Francisco. 


Through  Painted  Panes 

And  Other  Poems 


By 
Louis  Alexander  Robertson 


UNIVERSITY 

OF 


A.  M.  Robertson 

San  Francisco 
1907 


Copyright  by 

Louis  Alexander  Robertson 
1907 


?  ECAJ*^ 

V     OF  THE 

M.  -.    ,,  ,-n 

OF 


TO 

JAMES  DUVAL  PHELAN 

AN   ABLE  MAN  AND   LOYAL  CITIZEN 
I   INSCRIBE  THIS  BOOK 

WITH    THE    FOLLOWING    LINES 


RESURGAM 

(CHANT  ROYAL) 

The  cataclysmal  force  to  which  we  owe 

Our  glorious  Gate  of  Gold,  through  which  the  sea 
Rushed  in  to  clasp  these  shores  long,  long  ago, 

Came  once  again  to  crown  our  destiny 
With  such  a  grandeur  that  in  sequent  years 
This  period  of  pain  which  now  appears 

Pregnant  with  doubt,  shall  vanish  as  when  day 

Drives  the  foreboding  dreams  of  night  away. 
Born  of  the  womb  of  Woe,  where  Sorrow  sighs, 

Fostered  by  Faith,  undaunted  by  Dismay, 
Earth's  fairest  City  shall  from  ashes  rise. 


161469 


RESURGAM 

Portentous  of  her  lasting  overthrow, 

Scarce  forty  fateful  seconds  seemed  to  be; 

And  when  the  stars  had  faded  in  the  glow 

Of  the  bright  baleful  after-blaze,   though  she 

Shed  for  some  harrowing  hours  the  tristful  tears 

Which  showed  her  heart  was  torn,  the  Soul  that  cheers 
And  drives  Despair  forth  from,  the  creature  clay, 
Glowed  in  her  breast  and  did  to  her  display 

Great  stately  structures  soaring  to  the  skies; 
If  from  our  cosmic  creed  we  do  not  stray, 

Earths  fairest  City  shall  from  ashes  rise. 

Garbed  with  chaste  Grecian  beauty  she  shall  grow; 

Her  white  hand  holds  Fortuna's  fate-forged  key 
To  where  a  world's  ships,  speeding  to  and  fro, 

Shall  pause  and  pay  a  rich  restoring  fee; 
Corruption,  greed,  and  everything  that  bears 
A  semblance  to  them,  every  thought  that  sears 

The  heart  and  seeks  the  conscience  to  betray, 

Should  die  ere  born,  lest  later  on  Decay 
Destroy  the  fabric  seen  with  Fancy's  eyes. 

If  we  our  crime-condemning  laws  obey, 
Earth's  fairest  City  shall  from  ashes  rise. 

When  first  her  burning  tears  began  to  flow, 
Her  sapphire  surges  sobbed  with  sympathy; 

The  hosts  of  heaven  heard  their  wail  of  woe 
And  chanted  a  responding  threnody; 

4 


RESURGAM 

The  weeping  waves,  the  mystic  midnight  spheres 

Dispelled  her  doubts  and  drove  away  her  fears 
Of  doomful  dawns.     Almighty  God,  are  they 
Not  Baal's  blind  and  blatant  priests  who  say 

The  seismic  curse  was  Thine?     Thy  Voice  replies, 
"  Heed  not  the  heresy  they  preach  and  pray, 

Earth's  fairest  City  shall  from  ashes  rise." 

Of  (times  from  Shasta's  cloud-kissed  crest  of  snow, 
Soul-winged,  I  sail  o'  er  river,  grove,  and  lea 

To  where  I  hear  old  Triton's  trumpet  blow, — 
Where  from  the  tide  the  wave-wombed  Deity 

Rises  resplendent;  with  enraptured  ears 

The  Goatfoot's  pure  prophetic  pipes  she  hears; 
Bacchus  awaits  her  from  the  sparkling  spray, 
His  vine-bound  brow  on  her  white  breast  to  lay; 

In  one  great  hymn  their  voices  harmonize, 
This  message  doth  the  melody  convey, — 

Earth's  fairest  City  shall  from  ashes  rise. 

ENVOY 

Thou  demon  Fate,  that  erstwhile  sought  to  flay 
And  scourge  us  to  the  death,  thou  canst  not  slay 

The  faith  that  every  future  blow  defies; 
Though  we  thy  stealthy  steps  can  never  stay, 

Earth's  fairest  City  shall  from  ashes  rise. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

THROUGH    PAINTED    PANES II 

THE     SONNET 12 

THE   SHRINE   OF   SONG 13 

EURYDICE 14 

ORPHEUS   AND   EURYDICE 1$ 

PROSERPINA 24 

THERE  'S    NOTHING  LIKE  THE  OLD  BALLADE 25 

ART 28 

PHRYNE  :     A    DREAM 2Q 

BY  WESTERN  SHORES 34 

THE     MAENAD 35 

HELEN 36 

PROTEAN     ZEUS 37 

IN     ABSENCE 38 

THE    THUNDER    TUNE 39 

THE  CALIFORNIAN   REDWOODS 47 

BEYOND    THE    REQUIEMS 48 

THE   MAN   IS   NOTHING,   THE   WORK   IS   ALL 58 

HOVE-TO 6l 

WHEN    VIOLETS    BLOOM 62 

THE    UNKNOWN    LOVE 63 

THE    ROSE 64 

LET  'S    KISS    A    KISS 67 

7 


CONTENTS 

EVOLUTION 68 

REMEMBER    THEE  ! 76 

THE    TELLTALE    MARKS 77 

THE    DEVOTEE 78 

THE     TEMPTRESS 80 

VACILLATION 8l 

THE    DEAD    CALYPSO 82 

GIVE  ME  THY  LIPS pO 

THE    DREAM pi 

THE  KING  IS  DEAD.  LONG  LIVE  THE  KING  ! 92 

THE  CRIMSONED  GIFT 94 

ADIEU    D'AMOUR 95 

ENGLAMOURED 96 

HAPPY   DAYS 97 

LUST'S  TIGER  TEETH 98 

WHAT  GHOSTS   ARE  THESE? 99 

THE    SWOON IOO 

VICTOR    LOVE 102 

WITH   CAP  AND  BELLS 104 

0  SINGER   OF   THE    SEVEN    SEAS ! 10$ 

THE   TEARFUL   TROTH 108 

1  LOVE  THEE   STILL HO 

WAIFS Ill 

TO    A    TREE 112 

GIVE  A  BEGGAR  A    HORSE  AND    HE  'LL  GALLOP   TO    HELL 114 

THE   CRUST  OF   CONTENT Il6 

8 


CONTENTS 

FROM   CRYPT   AND   CHOIR 117 

WE  MUST  SIT  SILENT  WHEN  THE  DEVIL  DRIVES Il8 

JOB 120 

THE    HIDDEN    HAND 121 

LOVE   ME  ONCE   MORE 122 

THE    PROMISED    PEACE 124 

TEARS I2Q 

JUBILATE     DEO I3O 

WEARY 138 

TO    THE    UNKNOWN    GOD 140 

THE   CROSS-CROWNED   CAIRN 144 

CONSOLATION 146 

THE  CAVERN   OF  GLOOM 147 

THE  VANISHED   VINTAGE 151 

ATAXIA 152 

THE     LOOM 159 


'}•'   ' 


THROUGH    PAINTED    PANES 

THROUGH  painted  panes  a  glory  flows 
And  over  aisle  and  altar  throws 

Soft  floods  of  crimson,  blue,  and  gold, 
Till  silent  forms,  in  sculpture  stoled, 
Seem  waking  from  a  long  repose. 

Ah,  how  the  tinted  marble  glows  1 
For  every  cheek  now  wears  a  rose, 
And  each  white  face  seems  aureoled 
Through  painted  panes. 

These  weird  word-weavers  who  disclose 

Strange  things  to  us  in  rhyme  or  prose, 

Who  conjure  up  the  dead  and  cold, 

Or  Life's  great  varied  page  unfold, 

Their  art  is  but  a  light  that  shows 

Through  painted  panes. 


ii 


THE   SONNET 

As  often  in  some  grand  and  ancient  fane 
A  devotee  will  kneel  him  down  to  pray 
At  one  familiar  shrine  day  after  day, 

And  to  his  guardian  saint  his  woes  complain; 

There,  while  his  fingers  tell  the  beaded  chain, 
His  soul  in  ecstasy  drifts  far  away, 

Till  back  returning  with  the  vesper  strain, 
It  enters  once  again  its  home  of  clay. 

So  in  the  cloistered  corridors  of  Song 
There  is  one  altar  where  I  love  to  kneel ; 

Tho'  humblest  of  the  worshipers  who  throng 
Its  narrow  space,  yet  there  I  often  steal, 

And  in  the  Sonnet's  sacred  chalice  pour 

My  tears  and  prayers  until  I  weep  no  more. 


12 


THE    SHRINE   OF   SONG 

IN  mute  amazement  oft  I  pause  before 
The  portals  of  Song's  shrine  and  list  to  those 
Whose  music  from  its  classic  cloisters  flows 

Adown  the  tide  of  Time  forevermore. 

I  see  the  place  that  no  man  may  explore, 
Save  him  whose  Art  its  life  to  Genius  owes, 
On  whose  rapt  lips  the  sacred  cinder  glows 

That  teaches  Song's  sweet  shibboleth  and  lore. 

Ah,  it  were  heaven  to  enter  in  and  kneel 
In  some  dim  aisle,  unnoticed  and  apart, 
With  thirsting  soul  to  drink  the  psalms 

that  shame 

My  songs  to  silence ;  then  to  rise  and  feel 
That  my  untutored  lips  had  learnt  the  art 
That  seats  the  singer  in  the  House  of 
Fame. 


EURYDICE 

HOW  Orpheus  must  have  thrilled  thy  captive  soul, 
When,  facing  Dis,  thy  freedom  to  obtain, 
He  struck  the  classic  chords,  the  master  strain 

That  made  rocks  reel  and  rivers  backward  roll! 

Hell's  tortured  heroes  heard  his  harp  extol 

Thy  matchless  worth,  till  they  forgot  their  pain, 
And  turned,  one  glimpse  of  thy  fair  face  to  gain, 

As  after  him  they  saw  thee  earthward  stroll. 

Persephone  sat  silent  while  he  played, 
Then  whispered  to  her  lord  to  set  thee  free; 

Dis  nodded,  and  the  heavy  gates  of  Hell 
Swung  swift  and  wide,  while  Cerberus  obeyed 
The  taming  tune;  then  Orpheus  turned  to  see 
If  thou  wert  safe, and  heard  thee  cry  "Farewell!" 


ORPHEUS    AND    EURYDICE 

THE   lyre   she   loved  to   hear   on   Earth   rang 

through  the  halls  of  Hell, 
The  gloom  became  a  golden  dawn,  the  streams 

of  Sorrow  turned 
To  rippling  silver  as  she  dropped  Death's  fading 

asphodel, 

Then  in  her  tear-wet  pallid  cheeks  Love's 
crimson  roses  burned. 

'Twas  the  harp  of  her  husband  she  heard  in 

the  distance, 
'Twas  the  lute  he  had  waked  as  a  lover  to 

woo  her, 
And   it   called   through    the   shades   with   the 

searching  insistence 

Of  a  rapturing,  rescuing  summons  that  drew 
her 

Through  the  dark  to  where  Acheron's  waters 

were  sobbing, 

But  their  sob  seemed  a  psalm  to  the  souls 
that  were  greeting, 
15 


ORPHEUS  AND   EURYDICE 

And  a  hymn  to  the  hearts  that  together  were 

throbbing, 

Till  they  rose  and  went  onward,  his  lute 
strings  entreating 

Mighty  Dis  for  the  guerdon  that  none  had  been 

granted, 
Save  his  Queen,  who  sat  by  him,  Demeter's 

sad  daughter; 
How  her  soul  with  the  cry  of  those  chords  was 

enchanted! 

What  a  vision  of  Earth  and  of  Enna  they 
brought  her! 

Nearer  and  clearer  and  louder  and  prouder 
echoed  his  strains,  till  the  cries  and  the 
clamor 

Made  by  the  hapless  were  hushed  into  silence, 
lost  in  the  silver-tongued  tones  that  re 
sounded, — 

That  rang  to  the  roof  of  that  palace  infernal, 
till  through  the  gloom  that  had  grown 
to  a  glamour, 
16 


ORPHEUS  AND  EURYDICE 

Throned  'neath  a  blazing  and  bright  borealis, 
Dis  he  beheld  with  his  subjects  sur 
rounded. 

He  paused  before  the  throne; 

His  hand  fell  from  the  strings, 
Still  trembling  with  the  tone, 

The  spell  that  Music  flings 
Over  the  hardest  heart; 

Yea,  though  it  be  of  stone, 
The  tears  of  Grief  will  start, 

If  it  Love's  lips  hath  known 
And  lost  them  as  he  lost 

Those  of  Eurydice, 
When  Aristaeus  crossed 

Her  path  upon  the  lea; 
When  from  his  arms  she  sprang, 

Her  loyal  lips  to  save, 
But  felt  the  serpent's  fang 

And  faced  the  wailing  wave. 

No  need  had  he  to  speak  a  single  word, 
They  knew  his  story  well; 

17 


ORPHEUS  AND  EURYDICE 

The  throb  within  the  harpings  they  had  heard 

Told  more  than  tongue  could  tell; 
But  all  as  deaf  as  to  the  clamoring  hordes, 

Who  gathered  near, 

Was  Dis  unto  the  pure  and  peerless  chords 
Zeus  loved  to  hear, 
Until  his  Queen 
Did  closer  lean 
And  whisper  in  his  ear: — 
"By  all  the  pledges  thou  hast  given  me, 
Give  Orpheus  back  his  bride,  Eurydice." 

He  looked  on  her  and  said,  "Yea,  for  thy  sake 
I'll  yield  me  now."    And  thus  to  Orpheus  spake  :- 

"If  thou  hast  in  thy  soul 

The  courage  to  control 
The  love  that  led  thee  hither,  listen  well ; 

Thy  bride  may  follow  thee 

Back  to  thine  Arcady, 
But  till  both  pass  the  lordly  gates  of  Hell, 

Give  not  one  backward  glance 

To  her,  but  still  advance, 

18 


ORPHEUS  AND  EURYDICE 

Guide  her  to  where  your  glowing  roses  bloom; 
But  if  thou  disobey 
My  mandate,  she  shall  stray 

Back  to  the  home  that  waits  her  in  the  gloom." 

Clear  as  the  fluted  notes  that  Philomel 

Hymns  to  the  midnight  moon, 
Sweet  as  the  low  wave-whisper  in  a  shell, 

Such  was  the  silver  tune 
That  Orpheus  conjured  from  his  chords  at  first, 

To  thank  the  Lord  of  Hell; 
Then  from  his  waked,  exulting  lyre  there  burst 

An  antiphonic  swell 

Of  melody  that  thro'  those  sunless  regions  rolled, 
Ere  to  earth's  fragrant  fields  he  and  his  loved 
one  strolled. 

Dis  listened  with  derision  to  the  strain 
That  thrilled  his  captive  Queen,  Persephone; 

For  her  it  made  the  sombre  shadows  wane, — 
Charmed  by  its  weird  soul-waking  witchery, 

She  heard  the  murmur  of  Sicilian  streams, 

And  saw  the  sacred  meadow  of  her  dreams. 

19 


ORPHEUS  AND  EURYDICE 

The  song  that  spirit  unto  spirit  sings 
Then  mingled  with  the  music  of  the  strings 
That  Orpheus  struck,  Eurydice  to  guide 
Forth  from  the  gloom  to  where  her  virgin  vows 
were  sighed. 

Sweet  as  the  croon  of  the  doves  of  Dodona, 
cooing  and  wooing,  his  harmonies  called 
her, 

Moving  like  one  in  a  dream  she  obeyed  them, 
light  seemed  the  cold  lethal  links  that 
enthralled  her; 

Far  in  the  azure  the  lark  whistled  to  her,  borne 
on  the  breeze  came  the  fragrance  of 
flowers, 

Soon  with  her  lover  she'll  couch  in  the  clover, 
dreaming  through  Passion's  sweet  sen 
suous  hours. 

His  harp  sang  of  the  bees, 
And  of  the  warbling  birds 

That  nested  in  the  trees 
Above  the  sleeping  herds; 

20 


ORPHEUS  AND   EURYDICE 

Then  one  clear  conjuring  cadence  crowned  his 

lyre, 
And  Arcady  seemed  near,  home  of  her  heart's 

desire. 

Lulled  by  his  lute-strings,  Hell's  mighty  immor 
tals  paused  to  behold  her  as  onward  she 
wended; 

Cerberus  leaped  like  a  lamb  from  his  kennel, 
fawned  on  the  lily-white  hand  she  ex 
tended  ; 

Followed  her  on,  as  she  followed  her  lover, 
led  by  the  lute  that  had  ne'er  known 
denial, 

Till  Orpheus  drew  near  the  ponderous  portals, 
looked  on  the  sunlight,  and  then  came 
the  trial. 

Oh,  how  his  triumphing  harp-strings  then 
trembled!  Fair  were  the  streams  and 
the  meadows  that  faced  him, 

Where,  in  the  first  fervid  faith  of  her  girlhood, 
glowing  Eurydice's  white  arms  embraced 
him. 

21 


ORPHEUS  AND  EURYDICE 

Oh,  what  a  breath  of  ambrosial  sweetness  fanned 

her  fair  cheek!    What  a  halo  of  splendor 
Shone  through  the  gloom  on  her  golden  corym- 

bus!    How  those  clear  chords  compelled 

all  things  to  render 
Homage  to  her,  as  when  Dis  was  persuaded  to 

give  her  again  to  the  arms  of  her  lover, 
If  he  could  lead  her,  and  never  look  backward, 

out  of  the  gloom  to  their  couch  in  the 

clover! 

The  gates  of  Hell  he  gained, 
A  single  step  remained 

To  set  his  loved  one  free; 
But  ere  that  port  was  passed, 
A  glance  he  backward  cast 

And  saw  Eurydice, 

With  outstretched  hands,  into  the  darkness  fade; 
Oh,  what  a  price  for  that  last  look  was  paid! 

Sun,  that  shinest  in  the  bluest  skies  that  over 

Earth  e'er  bended, 

And  ye  mystic  stars  of  midnight,  and  thou 
wanton,  wandering  moon! 

22 


ORPHEUS  AND  EURYDICE 

Ye  were  watchers,  ye  were  listeners,  when  his 

quest  for  her  was  ended, 
Whisper  to  us  through  the  ages,  tell  us  if 

some  tristful  tune 
Sobbed  within  the  strings  to  soothe  him,  or  if — 

like  a  peal  of  thunder — 
Some  swift  harmony  revengeful  'gainst  the 

gates  of  Hell  he  poured? 
Was  it  pride,  or  was  it  passion,  that  impelled 

him  to  the  blunder, 

When  her  heart,  with  love  responding,  broke 
to  hear  the  crowning  chord? 


PROSERPINA 

DAUGHTER  of  Ceres,  throned  within  the  shade 
Of  Hell's  black  arches,  ever  gazing  through 
The  gloom  to  where,  wet  with  the  morning  dew, 

The  violet  greets  the  sun  in  Enna's  glade; 

Year  after  year  it  flourishes  to  fade, 

But  thro'  the  mists  of  time  thy  face  we  view, 
As  fair  as  when  great  Pluto  paused  to  woo, 

When  at  thy  side  his  foaming  steeds  were  stayed. 

The  fragrant  fields  of  sea-girt  Sicily, 

That  bloomed  beneath  thy  feet,  have  barren  grown, 

And  all  the  music  of  her  streams  is  still ; 
The  birds  sit  mute  on  every  withered  tree, 
With  thistles  now  that  velvet  sward  is  sown, 
The  winds  that  wantoned  with  thy  hair  are  chill. 


Vs 

OF  THE 


0    UNIVERSITY 

V  OF 

N^SUFGRI 

^**;    ,    • 


THERE'S  NOTHING  LIKE  THE  OLD 
BALLADE 

OF  all  the  tangled  tropes  that  tell 

Of  love,  or  hate,  or  joy,  or  pain, 
In  sonnet,  rondeau,  villanelle, 

Or  ode,  or  epic,  or  quatrain, 

Or  any  other  kind  of  strain, 
Or  light,  or  heavy,  gay,  or  sad, 

To  bring  a  boon,  or  balk  a  bane, 
There  's  nothing  like  the  old  ballade. 

Its  single  cymbal  suits  me  well, 

But  when  I  sound  the  clanging  twain, 
Then  Pegasus  begins  to  smell 

The  battle,  and  he  shakes  his  mane; 

No  need  of  spur,  I  give  him  rein; 
Think  ye  that  he  's  a  patient  pad? 

To  make  him  gallop  for  his  grain 
There  Js  nothing  like  the  old  ballade. 

25 


THERE  'S  NOTHING  LIKE  THE  OLD  BALLADE 

Did  not  rash  Villon  in  his  cell, 

Hard  by  the  sobbing  waves  of  Seine, 

Deaf  to  the  dooming,  dismal  bell, 
And  all  unmindful  of  his  chain, 
There  carol  forth  a  rare  refrain 

That  comes  to  us  with  glory  clad? 
If  rhyme  could  rid  him  of  his  stain, 

There  's  nothing  like  the  old  ballade. 

For  from  his  reckless  lips  there  fell 

Such  glowing  gems,  that  Glory's  fane, 
Wherein  the  world's  immortals  dwell, 

Doth  many  a  less  than  he  contain. 

The  prude  may  treat  him  with  disdain, 
She  neither  can  detract  nor  add, 

For  beauty  did  a  champion  gain; 
There  's  nothing  like  the  old  ballade. 

The  high-born  maiden's  heart  will  swell, 
And  think  the  whispered  vow  inane 

Sweet  as  the  voice  of  Philomel, 
When  Poesy  hath  made  it  plain; 
26 


THERE  'S  NOTHING  LIKE  THE  OLD  BALLADE 

See  yonder  awkward  stammering  swain! 
His  simple  song  makes  Chloe  glad; 

When  tongues  are  tied,  and  vows  are  vain, 
There  's  nothing  like  the  old  ballade. 

The  tune  that  Triton  taught  the  shell, 

Sung  by  the  surge  and  hurricane; 
The  lute  of  Orpheus,  'neath  whose  spell 

We,  like  the  Grecians,  long  have  lain; 

Pan's  pipes  that  filled  the  shepherd's  brain 
With  melody  that  made  him  mad, 

All  live,  so  why  should  Villon  wane? 
There  's  nothing  like  the  old  ballade. 

ENVOY 

Prince!    though  this  tantalizing  skein 
Of  rhyme  hath  less  of  good  than  bad, 

A  cup  to  Villon  let  us  drain, 

There  's  nothing  like  the  old  ballade. 


ART 

THOU  breathest  on  the  cold  insensate  stone, 

And  lo!  it  throbs  with  immortality; 
The  canvas,  with  thy  conjuring  pigments  strown, 

Glows  with  a  beauty  that  will  never  die ; 

The  deepest  fountains  of  the  heart  run  dry 
When  o'er  the  trembling  strings  thy  hand  is 
thrown, 

And  when  we  hear  thy  tongue's  rich  sorcery, 
We  know  not  why  we  laugh,  or  weep,  or  moan. 

We  know  not  why,  nor  do  we  care  to  know 
Where  rise  the  waters  of  that  mystic  stream 

Which  bears  the  spirit  onward  in  its  flow, 
Till,  all  unconscious  of  the  clay,  we  seem 

To  feel  the  breath  of  an  ambrosial  breeze, 

And  drift  with  it  o'er  dreamy  sapphire  seas. 


PHRYNE 

A  DREAM 

WHEN  thou  wert  with  me  in  the  waking  hours 
Of  those  delirious  but  degrading  days 
Now  gone  forever;  or  when  on  my  breast, 
Pillowed  in  slumber,  thy  fair  cheek  was  laid. 
Whether  it  was  that  each  enchanted  sense 
Was  drugged  so  deeply  with  thy  sorcery, 
Or  whether  thy  warm  lips  in  whispers  low, 
Unheard  by  me,  murmured  unto  my  heart, 
"Why  dream  of  me  when  I  am  by  thy  side?" 
I  cannot  say;  but  through  those  after  hours — 
The  sequent  drowsy  intervals  when  Love 
Languished  a  little  ere  it  waked  again — 
I  never  saw  thy  face  come  to  console, 
Or  mock  me  in  my  sleep  as  now,  when  I 
Turn  in  the  dark  with  dream-deluded  lips 
To  kiss  the  pillow  pressed  by  thee  no  more. 

29 


PHRYNE 

Sometimes  as  fair  as  Eos,  when  she  flings 
The  sombre  curtains  of  the  night  apart 
To  beam  in  beauty  on  a  sleeping  world, 
Dost  thou  appear  to  me ;  yea,  I  have  felt 
The  pressure  and  the  passion  of  thy  lips, 
And  even  heard  them  whisper  as  of  old. 

One  night  I  dreamt  that  I  was  one  among 

A  multitude  of  people  gathered  in 

The  city  Cecrops  founded;    I  beheld 

A  spacious  place,  circled  with  shrines  and  fanes, 

Ornate  with  chiseled  treasures  that  were  brought 

From  classic  shades  to  crown  a  pagan  rite 

With  a  reflected  glory  of  the  day 

That  dawned  when  Aphrodite  trod  the  seas. 

In  the  mute  language  that  the  dreamer  speaks, 
I  questioned  one  who  stood  near  me  to  learn 
The  meaning  of  the  mighty  concourse  there; 
He  pointed  to  an  empty  pedestal 
Standing  between  two  sculptured  effigies 
Of  wave-wombed  Cytherea;    one  revealed 
A  carved  conceit  of  unimpassioned  Love, 

30 


PHRYNE 

The  other  was  a  marble  dream  of  Lust. 

Upon  the  right  the  chaste  Ourania  sat, 

A  milk-white  dove  upon  her  whiter  breast, 

And  on  her  brow  the  sacred  myrtle  leaves. 

Upon  the  left  Euplcea  stood,  as  when 

The  Cnidian  youth  stole  to  her  in  the  dark, 

And  stained  her  snowy  bosom  with  the  blood 

Of  lips  that  crushed  her  marble  mouth  in  vain. 

Then  mystic  hymns,  such  as  are  only  heard 
In  the  domain  of  an  englamouring  dream, 
Rolled  from  the  opening  portals  of  a  fane 
In  which  a  throng  of  priestesses  appeared, 
Led  by  a  priest;    a  woman  with  them  walked, 
Hooded  and  masked,  garbed  in  a  purple  robe 
That  swept  the  shining  tiles  on  which  she  trod 
With  slow  and  stately  step,  until  she  came 
And  paused  in  silence  at  the  vacant  plinth. 

Then  did  the  priest  proclaim  that  she  was  one 
In  whom  the  best  and  basest  elements 
Mingled  together  in  a  breast  on  which 
E'en  Zeus  himself  had  been  content  to  rest. 

31 


PHRYNE 

He  also  told  that  listening  host  that  she 

Possessed  the  cestus  Cytherea  wore, — 

The  conquering  charm  that  no  man  may  resist; 

He  said  it  was  a  flavor  of  the  flesh 

Found  only  in  a  few,  and  only  when 

Some  face,  some  form,  and,  it  may  be,  some  voice 

Combine  with  it  to  kindle  in  the  blood 

The  rabies  of  a  desperate  desire. 

He  said,  as  well,  she  loved  to  worship  in 

Pandemos'  shrine,  then  wander  forth  to  give 

The  sailormen  of  Salamis  her  lips. 

Then  turning  from  that  eager  throng  to  her, 
And  pointing  to  the  plinth,  he  said,  "Ascend, 
Let  us  behold  the  breathing  beauty  which 
In  after  ages  man  shall  turn  to  see, 
But  through  the  dim  deluding  mists  of  time, 
For  thou  art  one  of  those  who  have  the  power 
To  prompt  the  chisel  and  the  brush  and  pen, 
And  gain  an  undeserved  but  deathless  fame." 

Still  masked  and  robed,  she  in  an  instant  scaled 
The  waiting  pedestal,  where  she  remained 

32 


PHRYNE 

A  mystery  for  a  moment,  but  no  more; 
For,  at  a  sign,  the  robe  fell  from  her  form, 
The  hood  dropped  off,  the  mask  was  flung  aside. 
And  Phryne  stood  in  faultless  beauty  there. 

The  marble  miracle  of  Phidias, 
The  chaste  Ourania,  seemed  to  shrink  away; 
The  people  cried  with  an  applauding  voice, — 
"Euplcea!    O  Euplcea!"     For  they  saw 
In  Phryne's  form  the  living  counterpart 
Of  one  whose  Parian  beauty  never  paled, 
Until  it  met  its  breathing  prototype, 
The  matchless  mistress  of  Praxiteles. 

Then  silence  followed;    as  I  looked  on  her, 

Methought  I  saw  a  likeness  unto  thee, 

And  cried  thy  name  aloud;  a  thousand  tongues 

Chorused  my  cry  and  claimed  thee  as  their  own ; 

Then  in  the  clamor  I  awoke  to  find 

The  dream  as  fleeting  as  thy  faithless  love. 


33 


BY  WESTERN    SHORES 

BY  Western  Shores  oft  Triton  blows 
His  sounding  shell,  and  she  who  rose 
All  wet  and  wanton  from  the  deep, 
To  make  man's  pulse  with  passion  leap, 
Here  on  the  wave  in  beauty  glows. 

A  herd  upon  the  hillside  lows, 
And  where  yon  stream  in  music  flows, 
There  Pan  is  piping  to  his  sheep, 

By  Western  Shores. 

Here  vine-crown'd  Bacchus  doth  repose, 
And  nymphs  and  satyrs,  like  to  those 

Of  Tempe,  from  the  copses  peep. 

Why  for  the  fabled  Lotus  weep, 
When  near  the  Poppy  we  may  doze 

By  Western  Shores? 


34 


THE    M^NAD 

WHY  call  this  fiction  in  thy  face  a  blush, 

When  that  pure  protest  faded  years  ago? 
This  is  the  fervid  and  precursive  flush 

That  makes  the  Maenad's  cheek  with  crimson 
glow  — 

The  rosy  herald  Passion  sends  to  show 
That  I  the  ripe  grapes  of  thy  lips  may  crush, 
Till  thro'  my  veins  more  rapturing  transports  rush, 

Than  from  the  richest  sun-kissed  clusters  flow. 

Love's  chalice,  garlanded  with  myrtle  leaves, 
Is  sweet  to  sip,  but  when  Desire  hath  grown 

Drunk  with  the  purple  poppy-seeded  wine 
Thy  passion  offers,  then  thy  sorcery  weaves 
The  spell  by  Circe  o'er  Ulysses  thrown, 
The  charm  that  changed  his  comrades  into 
swine. 


35 


HELEN 

THESE  are  the  eyes  in  which  proud  Paris  gazed, 
When  fast  across  the  dark  ^JEgean  sea 
He  fled  with  Helen  on  the  night  when  she 

Left  Sparta's  shore,  and  Menelaus  raised 

The  rescuing  cry;  then  War's  red  beacon  blazed, 
While  Greece  with  all  her  glorious  chivalry 
Dashed  'gainst  the  dauntless  Dardan  hosts  to 
free 

The  fair  and  faithless  woman  Homer  praised. 

Virtue  hath  rarely  worn  Fame's  glittering  crown ; 
Where  are  the  women  of  the  past  who  reigned 

In  spotless  robes?    Penelope,  Lucrece, — 
Ah,  God!  how  few!    But  Helen's  glorious  gown 
Defies  the  dust  of  ages,  and  though  stained 
With  Passion's  grapes,  gives  glamour  unto 
Greece. 


PROTEAN    ZEUS 

INTO  a  Satyr  did  the  God  degrade 

Himself  to  clasp  Antiope  an  hour; 

Then,  as  a  Bull  he  figured,  to  deflower 
Europa,  deemed  Phoenicia's  fairest  maid. 
Amphitryon's  part  he  with  Alcmena  played; 

To  Danae  he  seemed  a  Golden  Shower; 
In  Dian's  form  Callisto  he  betrayed, 

And  as  a  Flame  entered  ^Egina's  bower. 

Once  where  Eurotas'  murmuring  waters  flow, 
A  frightened  Swan  sought  Leda's  sheltering 
breast; 

In  his  warm  plumage,  whiter  than  the  snow, 
The  crimson  roses  of  her  cheeks  she  pressed; 

From  that  immortal  mingling  Helen  came, 

Whose  beauty  set  the  Trojan  towers  aflame. 


37 


IN   ABSENCE 

I  SIT  with  Pan  beneath  Arcadian  trees 

And  see  the  satyr  and  the  nymph  and  faun ; 

I  look  on  dazzling  Aphrodite  drawn 
By  dolphins  over  shining  sapphire  seas; 
I  hear  the  tune  of  Triton  in  the  breeze, 

Sad  Philomel  at  night,  the  lark  at  dawn, 
But  little  power  have  they  to  appease 

My  passion  and  my  pain  when  thou  art  gone. 

Yea,  e'en  the  paths  of  Poesy  seem  bare 
Of  all  their  beauty,  for  I  fail  to  find 

In  them  the  flowers  whose  fragrance  once 

could  fling 
A  spell  around  me  that  defied  despair, 

That  made  me  deaf  to  Love,  to  Passion  blind, 
But  little  consolation  now  they  bring. 


THE   THUNDER   TUNE 

THERE  was  music  mingling  with  the  thunder 
when  the  lightnings  o'er  Olympus  flashed, 

And  the  gods  who  slumbered  'round  their 
Master  waked  and  heard  the  harmony  that 
crashed 

From  the  clouds  that  later  hung  o'er  Ilion,  and 
the  dirge  of  her  destruction  roared, 

When  her  thronging  hosts  with  those  of  Hellas 
for  the  beauty  of  a  woman  warred. 

There  was  music  mingling  with  the  thunder,  but 

it  was  the  music  of  a  dream, 
And,  perchance,  had  passed  away  in  silence,  lost 

forever,  but  by  Meles'  stream 

There  was  born  a  child  around  whose  cradle 
all  the  Muses  met,  to  whom  they  brought 

From  Latona's  son  a  silver-chorded  harp  to 
which  in  after  years  he  taught 

39 


THE  THUNDER  TUNE 

The  melodious  and  majestic  measure,  which  a 
world  with  rapture  ever  hears, 

For  the  dreaming  soul  of  sightless  Homer  saw 
the  vision  that  to  few  appears. 

Heard  the  music  mingling  with  the  thunder,  and 
the  paean  of  the  cloud-throned  choir, 

Caught  the  meaning  of  the  clamoring  chorus, 
taught  it  to  his  ever-living  lyre. 

Few,  as  he,  controlled  the  chords  that  summon 
back  again  the  dust-dimmed  days  of  old ; 

Few  e'er  decked  the  dead  in  richer  raiment, 
turned  their  faded  garments  into  gold. 

Then  within  the  clouds  the  music  slumbered, 
near  a  thousand  years  it  silent  slept, 

Till  the  graceful  melodist  of  Mantua  waked  and 
struck  the  strings  that  Homer  swept. 

Then  again  we  saw  the  calm  ^Egean  ripple  into 
rapture  as  his  lyre 

Sent  its  silver  strains  across  the  waters,  crim 
soned  with  the  red  reflected  fire 
40 


THE  THUNDER  TUNE 

Of   the   flaming   falling   towers   of   Ilion,   ere 

^Eneas  unto  Carthage  came, 
Where  for  him  the  love-defeated  Dido  gave  her 

faultless  body  to  the  flame. 

Then  there  came  a  seeming  endless  silence, 
gleamings  of  the  lightning,  but  no  more, 

Till  the  lean-lipped  melancholy  Tuscan,  wan 
dering  exiled  by  an  alien  shore, 

Dreaming  of  old  Portanari's  daughter,  saw  the 

levin  leap  across  the  skies, 
Heard  the  deafening  thunder  tune  that  followed, 

saw  the  Mantuan's  guiding  shade  arise; 

Trod  with  him  the  circling  scenes  of  Torture, 
heard  Hell's  captives  curse  in  frost  and 
flame, 

Garbed  the  spectres  with  a  ghastly  glory,  shrined 
them  in  an  everlasting  fame. 

Then  the  sleeping  thunder-freighted  fleeces 
drifted  North  and  over  Stratford's  stream, 

Hovered  there  in  silence  for  a  season,  ere  they 
flashed  the  great  prophetic  gleam 
41 


THE  THUNDER  TUNE 

That  foretold  a  measure  more  melodic  than  the 
dirge  that  Dante  heard  in  Hell, 

Or  the  verse  that  Virgil  made  ^Eneas,  or  the 
hymn  that  Homer  sang  so  well. 

Little  had  he  of  the  graceful  Latin,  less,  or 
nothing,  of  the  grander  Greek, 

But  his  soul  had  listened  to  the  sermons  that  the 
stones,  the  brooks,  the  breezes  speak; 

Nature's  mystic  voice  for  him  grew  vibrant,  in 
its  tones  her  mother  tongue  he  heard, 

Then  she  gave  him  his  unclouded  crystals,  made 
him  master  of  the  wizard  word. 

Through  his  clear  uncompromising  lenses  Life 

is  seen  denuded,  undisguised; 
In  the  glowing  spectrum  of  his  genius  all  its 

tints  and  tones  are  analyzed. 

Pictured  on  his  panoramic  pages,  strange  im 
perishable  scenes  appear; 

Through  the  gamut  of  his  glorious  music,  won 
drous  cries  and  cadences  we  hear. 
42 


THE  THUNDER  TUNE 

In  his  songs  the  shrieking  Saxon  saga  mingles 

with  the  matin  of  the  lark, 
And  the  midnight  plaint  of  Philomela  lends  a 

golden  glory  to  the  dark. 

'Neath  didactic  Touchstone's  masking  motley, 
'neath  the  'guising  garb  of  Rosalind, 

All  the  lore  of  Life  and  Love  is  hidden,  all 
their  foibles  and  their  faiths  we  find; 

Never  had  a  King  a  better  kingdom  than  the 
banished  Duke  in  Arden  found; 

Little  mourned  he  for  his  stolen  sceptre,  when 
he  heard  those  leafy  lanes  resound 

With  the  voices  of  his  comrades  chanting  that 
Fate's  quiver  holds  no  hurtling  dart 

That  may  not  be  blunted,  bent,  and  broken 
'gainst  the  shield  of  a  contented  heart. 

Hark!  here  comes  the  prince  of  pot-house 
heroes;  watch  the  vine-born  valor,  wit,  and 
craft 

Rise  and  break  like  bubbles  on  the  surface  of 
the  seas  of  sack  which  he  has  quaffed; 

43 


THE  THUNDER  TUNE 

O'er  that  tide  he  sailed  with  well-trimmed 
canvas,  every  breeze  that  blew  was  fair 
for  him, 

And,  with  Hamlet,  Shylock,  and  Othello,  Fal- 
staff  hath  a  fame  Time  cannot  dim. 

Hear  the  protest  'gainst  the  quick  quietus,  when 
the  demon  whispered  to  the  Dane, 

And  then  listen  to  the  larger  logic  of  the  fervent 
phrases  that  contain 

Such  a  creed,  that  Death's  loud  sudden  sum 
mons,  or  his  faint  procrastinated  call, 

Wakes  no  fear  in  those  who  face  the  darkness 
with  the  words  "The  readiness  is  all!" 

Woven  with  the  figments  of  his  fancy,  'mongst 

the  many  fibres  there  is  one 
Which  a  woman's  white  ambitious  fingers  to  a 

cord  of  cruel  crimson  spun ; 

This  she  threaded  to  Fate's  flying  shuttle,  where 
it  blent  with  paler  woofs  and  warps, 

Till  upon  the  loom  the  longed-for  fabric  faded 
to  the  graveclothes  of  a  corpse. 

44 


THE  THUNDER  TUNE 

She  had  hoped  to  wear  the  royal  raiment,  as  the 
witches7  wizened  lips  had  vowed, 

But  Revenge  and  swift-winged  Retribution 
changed  the  promised  purple  to  a  shroud. 

For  the  phantom  dagger  found  the  fingers  of 
the  faithless  Lord  of  Dunsinane, 

And  the  Wood  of  Birnam  proved  its  portent 
when  the  King  was  murdered  by  the  Thane. 

Hear  the  lonely  lips  of  Mariana  sigh  for  those 

that  sweetly  were  forsworn, 
Listen  to  her  lute-strings  as  they  tremble,  learn 

the  deathless  lyric  that  was  born 

Of  a  love  that  faced  the  darkling  distance,  as  a 

Rose  a  lofty  Star  will  woo, 
Till  it  falls  into  her  fragrant  bosom,  mirrored 

in  a  drop  of  midnight  dew. 

All  his  airy  nothings  are  eternal;  when,  in  after 

ages,  naught  remains 
Of  Earth's  proudest  piles  and  fairest  fabrics, 

not  a  vestige  of  her  vanished  fanes, — 

45 


THE  THUNDER  TUNE 


When  her  sacred  moss-grown  shrines  surrender 
unto  Time,  who  ever  on  them  glowers, 

Man  shall  see  Titania  in  the  moonlight,  crown 
the  Weaver  with  unfading  flowers. 


THE  CALIFORNIAN  REDWOODS 

ERE  over  Nilus7  waking  wave  the  strain 

Of  Memnon's  morning  melody  was  blown ; 

Ere  Cheops  from  his  quarries  clove  the  stone 
And  piled  his  pyramid  on  Egypt's  plain; 
And  later,  ere  the  God-projected  fane 

Of  Solomon  had  into  grandeur  grown; 

Before  the  glory  of  the  Greek  was  known, 
Or  Romulus  the  she-wolf's  dugs  did  drain : — 

We  stood  in  youth  where  now  in  age  we  stand, 
Colossal  types  of  life  that  closer  climb 

To  clasp  the  stars  than  any  living  thing. 
Ye  cherish  crumbling  temples  that  were  planned 
In  Dian's  day,  yet  deem  it  not  a  crime 
Our  older  glory  in  the  dust  to  fling. 


47 


BEYOND  THE  REQUIEMS 

NOT  in  cataclysmal  chaos,  earthquake,  fire,  or 

flood,  or  blast, 
Waits  the  world  to  hear  the  summons  calling 

her  to  death  at  last. 

Oft  she  hears  a  muttered  menace,  sees  the 

ghastly  lightnings  gleam, 
And  the  slumbering  volcano  vomit  forth  its 

lethal  stream; 

Oft  she  sees  the  wind-whipped  waters  leaping 

to  the  sullen  skies, 
And  the  foaming  tidal  terror  in  its  deadly 

might  arise; 

But  still  deaf  to  all  the  dirges  that  have  rolled 

above  her  dead, 
And  the  songs  that  stir  the  living,  she  has  ever 

onward  sped, 

48 


BEYOND  THE  REQUIEMS 

As  when  first,  a  vagrant  vapor,  thrown  from 

off  the  glowing  breast 
Of  her  mighty  parent  planet,  up  the  shining 

path  she  pressed, 

Lifeless,  nebulous,  and  naked,  save  the  vesture 

that  was  drawn 
'Round  her  like  a  misty  mantle,  as  she  speeded 

to  the  dawn. 

Who  can  guess  the  force  that  flung  her  out 

upon  the  star-strewn  deep 
Clasped    her    cloudy    cincture    'round    her, 

taught  her  how  her  course  to  keep 

Through  the  vast  uncharted  regions,  orbed 
her,  shaped  her,  'round  her  flung 

Icy  bands  and  frozen  fetters  that  for  aeons  to 
her  clung? 

Long  she  drifted  through  the  darkness,  but  at 
last  the  Word  was  heard, 

And  the  cold,  insensate  sleeper  to  the  waken 
ing  message  stirred; 

49 


BEYOND  THE  REQUIEMS 

Felt  the  quickening  breath  that  melted  frozen 

field  and  moor  and  main, 
Drank  the  draught  of  saving  sunlight,  lost  the 

winter- woven  chain; 

Grew  in  grandeur  and  in  beauty,  soaring  to 

the  noonday  height, 
Till  the  mighty  Hand  that  hurled  her  out 

upon  the  cosmic  night 

Draws  her  back  to  death  and  darkness,  shrouds 

her  in  her  ice  once  more, 
Stripped  of  all  her  garnered  glory,  all  her 

Science,  Song,  and  Lore. 

There  shall  be  no  eye  to  see  it,  Life  shall  long 

have  left  the  earth, 
When  she  reels,  a  dying  planet,  to  the  breast 

that  gave  her  birth. 

All  our  knowledge  is  as  nothing;  clear-eyed 

Reason  stands  aghast, 
For  she  sees  the  light  that  led  us  through  the 

dark  and  distant  past 
50 


BEYOND  THE  REQUIEMS 

Lost  within  the  larger  lustre  Science  sheds 
upon  Earth's  doom, 

Is  it  better  than  the  glow-worm  that  we  fol 
lowed  in  the  gloom? 

While  Earth  speeds  to  where  unnumbered 
sister  stars  are  frozen  spheres, 

Faith,  before  her  falling  altars,  lifts  her  fear 
less  face  and  hears 

Every  cherished  creed  derided,  but  still  mum 
bles  to  her  beads, 

Dreaming  that  beyond  the  requiems  deathless 
life  to  death  succeeds. 

Hope's  pale  star  still  smiles  to  soothe  us,  dis 
tant,  indistinct,  and  cold, 

As  the  primal  moth  beheld  it,  do  we  now  its 
beams  behold? 

Are  we  nearer  than  the  nascent  life  that  slum 
bered  in  the  slime, 

When  the  protoplasmic  moner  scanned  the 
steeps  that  it  must  climb? 

51 


BEYOND  THE  REQUIEMS 

Or  the  microcosmic  atom,  ere  its  fetters  left 

it  free? 
Or  the  blind  bathybius  sleeping  at  the  bottom 

of  the  sea? 

Yea,  the  germ,  primordial,  potent,  saw  the 

goal  that  it  must  gain, 
Found  a  hovel  in  man's  body,  built  a  palace 

in  his  brain. 

And  the  selfsame  seeds  that  wakened  with  it 

in  Earth's  virgin  womb 
Fill  the  fields  with  fragrant  blossoms,  or  in 

poisoned  petals  bloom; 

i 
Make  the  wilderness  grow  vocal  with  the 

voice  of  bird  and  brute, 
Send  the  great  Sequoia  skyward,   gnaw  in 
cankers  at  its  root; 

Never  swerving  from  the  settled  purpose  of 

the  primal  plan, 
Save  when  planted  in  the  passions  and  the 

burning  brain  of  man; 

52 


BEYOND  THE  REQUIEMS 

There,  oft  glorious,  often  ghastly,  oft  de 
graded,  oft  divine, 

Sometimes  soaring  to  the  stars,  and  sometimes 
wallowing  with  the  swine ; 

Always  out  of  tune  with  Nature ;  is  the  human 
brute  the  best, 

Fated  to  the  thralling  thirst  that  burns  for 
ever  in  his  breast, 

Which  hath  ever  urged  us  onward  o'er  Life's 

sterile  sands,  till  we, 
Rich  in  knowledge,  rich  in  wisdom,  panting 

forward,  ever  see 

Silent  and  untrodden  regions,  over  which  the 

mirage  beams, 
But  its  tempting  trees  and  waters  murmur 

only  in  our  dreams? 

They  have  murmured  unto  myriads  and  be 
guiled  them  in  the  past, 

They  will  call  through  coming  ages,  long  as 
life  on  earth  shall  last, 

53 


BEYOND  THE  REQUIEMS 

When  she  hurries  through  the  spaces  on  to 

where  the  peril  hides, 
As  some  bark  on  her  own  bosom  sails  through 

tranquil  tropic  tides, 

Freighted  full  with  costly  treasures,  till  some 

stealthy  stream  or  breeze 
Woos  her  from  the  summer  waters  into  dark 

and  winter  seas, 

Where  the  icy  currents  clasp  her,   and  the 

frozen  vapors  turn 
Into  cerements  of  silver,  shrouding  her  from 

stem  to  stern. 

Galley  slaves  were  ne'er  chained  closer  than 
her  captive  crew,  whose  doom 

Is  to  drift  to  death  through  darkness,  fettered 
to  their  floating  tomb; 

Crouching  in  the  cold  and  shrinking  from 

their  dreaded  end  they  gaze 
On  some  spectre  sail  that  mocks  them  as  it 

passes  in  the  haze. 

54 


BEYOND  THE  REQUIEMS 

So  the  life  that  lingers  latest  on  this  planet 

still  will  yearn 
For  the  peace  the  world  denies  it,  yea,  though 

it  again  return 

To  the  lowest  type  that  sheltered  in  its  breast 

Hope's  latent  spark, 
And  then  fanned  it  to  the  fatuous  flame  that 

lures  us  through  the  dark. 

All  our  philosophic  pedants,  all  our  sons  of 

Science  know 
Not  a  whit  more  than  that  dullard  dreamed 

unnumbered  years  ago, 

As  to  where  the  spirit  wanders  when  the  body 

sinks  in  death, 
For  beyond  the  grave's  black  portals  never 

man  has  breathed  one  breath. 

We  have  probed  the  past  and  hunted  in  its 

deepest,  darkest  cells, 
But  the  secret  still  eludes  us,  never  by  one 

whisper  tells 

55 


BEYOND  THE  REQUIEMS 

Where  Life  felt  its  first  faint  tremor,  for  it 

was  not  born  of  naught, 
Never    seed    spontaneous    blossoms    till    the 

quickening  breath  be  brought. 

As  we  know  not  the  beginning,  so  we  may  not 

know  the  end, 
But  as  life  from  life  first  started,  back,  through 

death,  to  life  'twill  wend. 

Now  and  then  some  guide  arises  who  would 

turn  us  from  our  path 
With  sweet  promises  that  please  us,  or  with 

threats  of  future  wrath. 

We  have  listened  to  His  lessons,  heard  the 

Nazarene's  behest, 
"Follow  Me,  my  way-worn  children,  I  alone 

can  give  ye  rest." 

We    have    wondered    as    we    hearkened    unto 

Buddha's  pleading  voice, 
If  to  find  the  peace  men  long  for,  they  could 

make  a  wiser  choice. 
56 


BEYOND  THE  REQUIEMS 

We  have  seen  the  swarthy  Arab  step  athwart 
our  path  and  say, 

"Ye  shall  drink  the  living  waters,  if  my  pre 
cepts  ye  obey." 

We  have  searched  the  stars  above  us  for  the 

secret,  but  no  beam 
Lights  our  darkened  path  to  guide  us  to  the 

goal  of  which  we  dream. 

Little  hope  or  help  is  hidden  in  the  garners 

of  the  past, 
All  its  poets,  priests,  and  sages,  all  the  wisdom 

which  they  massed, 

All  its  fables,  faiths,  and  fictions,  all  its  tem 
ples,  triumphs,  tomes 

Pell  us  nothing  of  the  region  where  the  flesh- 
freed  spirit  roams. 


57 


THE  MAN  IS  NOTHING,  THE  WORK 
IS  ALL 

THIS  world  is  but  a  noisy  show, 

A  mighty,  motley  masquerade, 
Where  countless  actors  come  and  go, 

A  tragedy  and  gasconade, 

Where  many  puzzling  parts  are  played; 
Till  curtained  with  Death's  dusty  pall, 

And  in  Time's  testing  balance  weighed, 
The  man  is  nothing,  the  work  is  all. 

Forward  they  press,  both  high  and  low, 

And  rich  and  poor,  and  gay  and  staid; 
Some  climb  where  Fame's  fair  mountains  glow, 

While  others  grovel  in  the  glade; 

But  when  at  last  the  sexton's  spade 
Hath  built  the  bed  to  which  they  crawl, 

When  requiems  roll  and  prayers  are  prayed, 
The  man  is  nothing,  the  work  is  all. 

58 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

FC 

-. 

THE  MAN  IS  NOTHING,  THE  WORK  IS  ALL 

Though  rivers  red  as  crimson  flow 

Beneath  the  shot-torn  barricade; 
Though  on  the  clay  of  fallen  foe 

Thrones  have  been  reared  with  reeking  blade, 

Yet  when  some  tyrant  hath  betrayed 
His  trust,  our  freedom  to  enthrall, 

War's  waking  cry  should  be  obeyed, 
The  man  is  nothing,  the  work  is  all. 

Fate's  shuttle  flashes  to  and  fro, 

And  many  curious  webs  are  made; 
Oft  Fortune  doth  her  smile  bestow 

To  light  some  dullard  through  the  shade ; 

While  Genius,  jilted  by  the  jade, 
Hears  in  the  gloom  Fame's  clarion  call, 

"Toil  on!    toil  on!    be  not  afraid, — 
The  man  is  nothing,  the  work  is  all." 

Through  scenes  of  sin  and  ways  of  woe 
Some  reckless  sons  of  Song  have  strayed. 

Villon  and  Burns,  Verlaine  and  Poe, 
And  Wilde,  her  latest  renegade, 

59 


THE  MAN  18  NOTHING,  THE  WORK  IS  ALL 

With  others  whom  the  Fates  have  flayed, 
Who  to  the  dregs  drained  Sorrow's  gall, 

Wear  the  fair  leaves  that  never  fade; 
The  man  is  nothing,  the  work  is  all. 

To  some  misleading  guides  we  owe 
Lights  that  have  made  us  retrograde; 

While  others  up  Time's  ramparts  throw 
For  us  a  shining  escalade, 
By  which  we  may  at  last  invade 

Truth's  glorious  and  eternal  hall; 
Or  fair,  or  foul,  in  Life's  crusade, 

The  man  is  nothing,  the  work  is  all. 

ENVOY 

Whene'er  we  glory  or  upbraid 

The  good  or  bad,  the  great  or  small, 

This  maxim  may  our  judgment  aid, 
The  man  is  nothing,  the  work  is  all. 


60 


HOVE -TO 

BAFFLED,  but  bravely,  like  a  stag  at  bay, 
She  faced  the  driving  gale  and  angry  sea; 
Under  short  canvas  and  with  helm  a-lee, 

Hove-to,  upon  the  starboard  tack  she  lay 

And  looked  into  the  wind's  wild  eye  that  day. 
Over  the  great  green  rolling  billows  she 
Rode  like  a  storm-bird,  and  did  seem  to  be 

A  mist-born  phantom  rising  from  the  spray. 

Her  tightened  weather-shrouds  rang  like  a 

lyre, 
Struck  by  the  furious   Storm-king  as  he 

passed; 
Wild  ocean  wraiths  wailed  in  the  thundering 

choir, 

A  thousand  demons  shrieked  in  every  blast; 
Yet  better  thus  to  battle  with  the  gale, 
Than  drift  o'er  sleeping  seas  with  listless  sail. 


61 


WHEN    VIOLETS    BLOOM 

WHEN  violets  bloom,  'tis  when  the  year 
Wakes  from  her  winter  dream  to  hear 
Spring's  cradle-song  crooned  by  the  gale 
O'er  meadow,  mountain,  moor,  and  dale, 
That  these  pure  purples  first  appear. 

Then  Summer's  daughters  come,  who  wear 
More  gorgeous  robes,  but  they  are  mere 
Maids  to  the  modest  Queen  we  hail 
When  violets  bloom. 

Then  hosts  of  fragrant  followers  rear 
Their  sun-kissed  crests  of  beauty  ere 
The  frosts  of  Winter  fall,  but  fail 
To  make  these  virgins  of  the  vale 
Forgotten  by  the  hearts  they  cheer 

When  violets  bloom. 


THE    UNKNOWN    LOVE 

As  in  the  City  of  the  Violet  Crown 

An  altar  to  the  Unknown  God  was  raised 
Midst    shrines    of    beauty    that    a    world 

amazed, 

And  even  now  in  crumbling  grandeur  frown; 

For  well  the  fine  Hellenic  hand  could  gown 

The  stone  with  glory;  but  while  strangers 

praised 
The  peerless  piles,  the  Greek  upon  them 

gazed 
Unmoved  by  all  their  beauty  and  renown. 

For  every  sense  was  sated,  and  he  yearned 
For  more  than  soulless  marble  could  contain, 

Then  did  his  vague  idolatry  disown; 
So  I  on  Passion's  altars  long  have  burned 
The  incense  of  my  soul,  but  all  in  vain, — 
The  love  I  dream  of  I  have  never  known. 


63 


THE   ROSE 

WHEN  to  my  lips  this  rose  I  pressed, 

Life  with  new  beauty  seemed  to  glow. 
A  love  that  slumbered  in  my  breast, 
When  to  my  lips  this  rose  I  pressed, 
Leaped  back  to  life,  and  I  confessed 

The  pledge  I  gave  thee  long  ago. 
When  to  my  lips  this  rose  I  pressed, 
Life  with  new  beauty  seemed  to  glow. 

When  first  our  fervid  troth  was  told, 

I  gave  it  to  thee  with  a  vow. 
Shall  I  forget  that  night  of  old, 
When  first  our  fervid  troth  was  told, 
And  when  I  swore  that  it  should  hold 
Me  true  to  thee?    It  holds  me  now. 
When  first  our  fervid  troth  was  told, 
I  gave  it  to  thee  with  a  vow. 
64 


THE  ROSE 

And  now  it  comes  in  after  years, 
Its  scent  and  color  gone  with  age, 

Wet  with  Faith's  timid,  trustful  tears. 

And  now  it  comes  in  after  years, 

And  cries  aloud  to  Love  that  hears 
And  hastens  to  redeem  the  gage. 

And  now  it  comes  in  after  years, 
Its  scent  and  color  gone  with  age. 

And  back  to  where  I  met  thee  first 

This  faded  flower  my  memory  bears; 
All  doubts  of  thee  it  hath  dispersed, 
And  back  to  where  I  met  thee  first 
I  speed  with  every  sense  athirst, 

My  soul  the  sacred  summons  hears, 
And  back  to  where  I  met  thee  first 
This  faded  flower  my  memory  bears. 

I  see  the  love-light  in  thine  eyes, 

I  listen  to  thy  murmurs  low, 
I  drink  the  rapture  of  thy  sighs; 
I  see  the  love-light  in  thine  eyes, 
65 


THE  ROSE 

And  oh!    I  see  the  tears  that  rise, 

And  curse  the  fate  that  made  them  flow. 

I  see  the  love-light  in  thine  eyes, 
And  listen  to  thy  murmurs  low. 

The  lips  I  loved  may  now  be  pale, 
But  what  is  that,  dear  one,  to  me? 

Time's  touch  will  make  the  fairest  fail. 

The  lips  I  loved  may  now  be  pale, 

But  through  the  gloom  I  hear  them  wail, 
And  haste  across  the  years  to  thee. 

The  lips  I  loved  may  now  be  pale, 
But  what  is  that,  dear  one,  to  me? 


66 


LET'S    KISS    A    KISS 

LET  's  kiss  a  kiss  and  vow  a  vow 

And  lightly  laugh  at  far-off  years; 
Ere  yet  beneath  their  weight  we  bow, 
Let 's  kiss  a  kiss  and  vow  a  vow 
That  age  shall  find  us  then  as  now, 

Linked  by  a  love  that  never  fears. 
Let 's  kiss  a  kiss  and  vow  a  vow 
And  lightly  laugh  at  far-off  years. 


EVOLUTION 

MYSTICAL  Dream  of  Creation! 
Problem  of  Dark  Evolution! 
Tell  us  the  world's  early  story, 

Life's  hidden  secret  unfold. 
Vain  is  each  wild  speculation, 
Groping  in  gloom  for  solution, 

Enough  that  from  darkness  sprang  glory, 
Sunrise  in  crimson  and  gold. 

Mounting  the  stream  of  the  ages, 
Up  to  its  sources  of  mystery, 
Threading  its  channels  uncertain, 

What  after  all  have  we  won? 
Blank  were  the  world's  early  pages, 
Buried  in  myth  was  its  history, 
Long  after  Earth's  misty  curtain 
Glowed  with  the  light  of  the  sun. 

68 


EVOLUTION 

Still  in  the  quarried  tradition, 
Still  in  the  ice-graven  story, 
Still  in  the  rock-written  fable, 

Linger  the  throes  of  thy  birth; 
Marking  thy  growth  and  transition, 
Back  in  the  centuries  hoary, 
Legends  that  teach  and  enable 
Thy  children  to  know  thee,  O  Earth ! 

Nebulous  waif  of  obscurity, 

On  through  immensity  stealing, 
Wandering  child  of  the  forces, 

Dropped  from  the  matrix  of  night! 
Fashioning  thyself  to  maturity, 
Sphering  and  fusing,  annealing, 
Through  the  dark  centuries'  courses 
Drifting  along  to  the  light. 

Chaos  all  order  confounding, 
Yet  ever  silently  speeding 
On  with  instinctive  elusion, 
Steadily  holding  thy  way; 
69 


EVOLUTION 

Darkness  primeval  abounding, 

Down  through  the  aeons  unheeding, 
Ever  mid  murky  confusion 
Blundering  on  to  the  day. 

Thundered  a  mandate  through  heaven, 
"Let  there  be  light!"  and  the  vapors, 
Losing  themselves  in  the  ocean, 
Mingled  again  with  the  deep. 
Then  followed  morning  and  even, 
Night  lit  her  pale  distant  tapers, 
Order  was  born  of  commotion, 
Earth  was  awakened  from  sleep. 

Laboring  in  primal  gestation, 
Life  in  its  forms  multifarious, 
Eager  to  meet  the  sun's  kisses, 

Leaped  in  her  womb  with  delight; 
Weary  of  long  nidulation, 

Up  from  their  wallows  lutarious, 
Up  from  their  darksome  abysses 

Swarmed  the  strange  brood  of  the  night. 
70 


EVOLUTION 

Life  in  fantastic  variety, 

Breeding  and  battling  and  dying, 
Struggling  for  very  existence, 

Rending  with  fang  and  with  nail ; 
Death,  never  gorged  with  satiety, 
Over  the  massacre  flying, 

Blind  to  the  light  in  the  distance, 
Deaf  to  the  song  in  the  gale. 

Type  against  type  for  survival 
Through  the  long  ages  contending, 
All  for  supremacy  striving, 

Man  as  the  master  they  own; 
Brute  of  the  brutes  without  rival, 
Up  from  the  conflict  ascending, 
Scheming,  coercing,  contriving, 
Building  the  steps  to  his  throne. 

Fatuous  child  of  mortality, 
Swaddled  in  dark  superstition, 
Groping  thy  way  through  obscurity, 
Stumbling,  but  stumbling  to  rise; 
71 


EVOLUTION 

Casting  aside  animality, 

Girding  thyself  with  ambition, 
Fearlessly  facing  futurity, 

Scaling  the  steeps  of  the  skies. 

Race  against  race  for  dominion, 
Creed  against  creed  for  conviction, 
Throne  against  throne  for  subversion, 

Moving  like  puppets  at  play; 
Battling  to  force  an  opinion, 
Bleeding  to  follow  a  fiction, 
Dying,  with  instant  reversion, 
To  mingle  again  in  the  fray. 

Many  a  crimson  libation, 
Poured  on  barbarian  altars, 
Freer  and  faster  than  water, 

Purples  thy  triumph  with  shame; 
Many  a  lurid  oblation, 

Smoking  to  priest-prated  psalters, 
Many  a  monster  of  slaughter 
Fiddling  a  kingdom  to  flame. 
72 


EVOLUTION 

Many  a  Moloch  of  cruelty, 
Many  a  Tophet  infernal, 
Hope,  after  gory  baptism, 

Flung  to  the  funeral  pyre; 
But  with  death-scorning  credulity, 
Pluming  its  pinions  eternal, 
Up  from  the  murderous  abysm 

Springing,  like  phoenix,  from  fire. 

Dross  of  the  brute  disappearing, 
Lost  in  the  burning  purgation, 
Leaving  the  spirit  less  weighted, 
Less  overburdened  with  clay; 
On  to  the  light  ever  faring, 
Toiling  in  endless  gradation, 
Lower  to  higher  translated, 
Rising  from  darkness  to  day. 

Many  a  sacred  Thermopylae 
Hurling  defiance  at  slavery, 
Many  a  crucified  martyr 
Dying  for  love  of  his  kind. 

73 


EVOLUTION 

Tyranny,  kingcraft,  monopoly, 
Yielding  to  justice  and  bravery; 
Liberty's  blood-blazoned  charter 
Many  a  despot  hath  signed. 

Many  a  conquest  of  Science, 
Shaming  the  warrior's  sabre ; 
Many  a  triumph  of  morals, 

Wisdom  and  Mercy  and  Love. 
Many  a  blade  of  defiance 

Forged  to  the  ploughshare  of  Labor; 
Many  a  chaplet  of  laurels 
Wreathed  with  the  olive  above. 

Height  after  height  hast  thou  taken, 

Yet  there  are  others  remaining, 

Far  in  the  pure  empyrean 

Truth's  shining  battlements  rise; 
Scale  them  with  courage  unshaken, 
Death  and  disaster  disdaining, 
Storm  them  with  jubilant  paean, 
Capture  the  gates  of  the  skies. 

74 


EVOLUTION 

Then  shall  all  ills  of  mortality 
Unto  thy  wisdom  surrender; 

Knowledge  supreme  and  supernal, 

Leaving  no  summit  to  scale. 
Truth,  in  her  white-robed  reality, 
Opening  her  portals  of  splendor, 
Yielding  her  treasures  eternal, 
Lifting  Obscurity's  veil. 


75 


REMEMBER   THEE! 

REMEMBER  thee !  The  earliest  morning  beam 

That  breaks  my  slumber  brings  thee  back  to  me. 

Then  through  the  long  and  lonely  day  I  see 
Thy  haunting  beauty,  and  my  soul  doth  dream 
Of  blissful  bygone  raptures  that  redeem 

These  tristful  moods  and  keep  me  true  to  thee. 

Then,  in  the  dark,  I  kneel  and  pray  to  be 
Blessed  with  thy  passion,  peerless  and  supreme. 

Remember  thee!  Recall  the  midnight  hours — 
The  glorious  gloom — in  which  we  found  the  way, 
Thro'  sensuous  shades,  to  where  our  spirits  met 
And  breathed  the  fragrance  of  the  purple  flowers 
Which  Passion  gives  his  favored  ones  who  stray 
Where  we  have  strolled,  then  ask  if  I  forget. 


THE   TELLTALE   MARKS 

I  DREAMT  one  night  that  I  beheld  thee  dead; 

The  Spoiler  scarce  had  stolen  thy  breath  away, 

When  I  bent  over  thy  beloved  clay, 
Speechless  and  tearless,  with  a  nameless  dread. 
For  all  thy  pallid  flesh,  from  heel  to  head, 

Passion's  empurpled  lip-prints  did  display; 

Unnumbered  ghosts  of  bygone  loves  were  they; 
Thy  pale  lips  moved,  and  this  is  what  they  said: — 

"Thou  didst  believe  me  true,  but  my  false  heart 
Was  traitor  to  thee,  and  I  did  conceal 

My  shame  for  many  years ;  but  now  my  art 
Availeth  not;  these  telltale  marks  reveal, 

Each  one,  a  guilty  love — "    "No  more!"  I  cried, 

And  woke  to  find  thee  sleeping  at  my  side. 


77 


THE   DEVOTEE 

THOU  art  no  saint,  but  when  I  feel 

Thy  blessed  lips  on  mine, 
In  adoration  I  could  kneel 

And  own  thee  half  divine. 
A  glory  crowns  thy  golden  hair, 

And  lights  thy  loving  eyes, 
Daughter  of  Earth!    thou  art  as  fair 

As  those  who  tread  the  skies. 

And  when  in  my  enraptured  ears 

Thy  murmuring  accents  flow, 
I  think  some  spirit  of  the  spheres 

Hath  wandered  here  below. 
For  angel  lips  alone  could  move 

In  melody  so  sweet; 
Child  of  the  Skies!   behold  thy  love 

A  suppliant  at  thy  feet. 

78 


OF 

THE  DEVOTEE 


Time's  rude,  unsparing  hand  will  chase 

Thy  loveliness  away; 
But  there  's  a  nobler,  loftier  grace 

That  triumphs  o'er  decay; 
The  heart  that  never  once  betrayed, 

That  changing  years  have  tried, 
When  all  thy  other  beauties  fade, 

Shall  draw  me  to  thy  side. 


79 


THE   TEMPTRESS 

BELIKE  thou  art  a  temptress  come  from  hell, 

The  devil  often  dons  a  fair  disguise; 

And  yet  I  like  the  laughter  in  thine  eyes, 
And  for  thy  lips, — I  love  them  wondrous  well ; 
They  oft  remind  me  of  an  ocean  shell, 

With  all  its  murmuring  melody  of  sighs, 
Till  I  forget,  when  captive  to  their  spell, 

The  whispered  music  may  be  naught  but  lies. 

Nay,  nay!   I  do  thee  wrong;   have  I  not  felt 
The  rosy  rebels  into  sweetness  melt, 

And  seen  thee  swoon  within  my  close  caress? 
What  matter  if  thy  lips  the  word  withhold, — 
In  the  mute  music  of  thy  pulses  bold 

Thy  love  grows  voluble  and  doth  confess. 


80 


VACILLATION 

THE  blessing  and  the  curse  alternate  rise; 
One  day  I  swear  that  thou  art  fairer  far 
Than  the  chaste  beauty  of  yon  silver  star 

That  nightly  hangs  her  lamp  in  western  skies. 

The  next  I  look  on  thee  with  other  eyes, 
Thy  beauty  hath  all  vanished  and  thou  art 
Foul  as  a  leper,  and  thy  traitor  heart 

Seems  but  a  sink  of  craftiness  and  lies. 

One  day,  with  many  a  passion-prompted  vow, 
I  braid  Love's  votive  blossoms  in  thy  hair; 

The  next  I  tear  the  tribute  from  thy  brow 
And  crown  thee  with  the  curses  of  Despair. 

Swayed  by  the  changing  moon,  tides  ebb  and  flow, 

So  to  thy  fickle  heart  these  moods  I  owe. 


81 


THE   DEAD    CALYPSO 

WHERE  be  thy  witcheries  now,  woman  of  won 
derful  beauty? 
Priestess  of  pleasure  and  love,  thy  lotus  hath 

withered  at  last. 
Sweet  was  the  soul-searing  cult  taught  by  thy 

liberal  kisses, 
Sweeter   the   chalice   of   love   formed   by   thy 

sensuous  mouth, 
Ripe  as  the  rapturing  grape,  rich  as  the  rose 

in  its  redness, 
But  unto  them  that  did  drink  fatal  as  waters 

of  death. 
Left  unto  thee  are  the  dregs,  bitter  and  biting 

as  wormwood, 
Freezing  the  blood  in  thy  veins,  leaving  thee 

rigid  and  cold. 

Strange  that  these  lust-loving  lips,  prodigal  once 

with  such  passion, 
82 


THE  DEAD  CALYPSO 

Wreathe  themselves  into  a  smile  chaste  as  a 
maiden's  in  sleep! 

Ah,  how  they  Ve  changed  since  I  first  crushed 
their  voluptuous  vintage! 

Shrunk  is  their  soft  silken  skin,  as  when  the 
tropical  sun 

Drinking  the  life  of  the  grape,  leaves  it  aban 
doned  and  shriveled, 

Gibbeted  on  its  own  vine,  swinging  like  felon 
forgot. 

Mute  is  thy  murmuring  voice,  silent  its  pas 
sionate  pleading, 

Which,  like  a  song  of  the  sea  heard  in  a 
whispering  shell, 

Called  me  so  softly  to  where,  rising  through 
ravishing  roses, 

Love's  longed-for  heaven  appeared,  fair  as  a 
rhapsodises  dream; 

Misted  with  halos  of  gold,  yet  but  a  vanishing 
splendor 

Miraged  in  exquisite  grace  over  a  desert  of 
death. 

83 


THE  DEAD  CALYPSO 

But  when  the  pulses  of  youth  throb  with  their 

eager  insistence, 
When  the  white  snows  of  the  heart  melt  with 

the  breath  of  the  spring, 
Then    when    the    currents    of    life    leap    with 

ineffable  joyaunce, 
Where  is  the  hand  that  can  point  whither  their 

waters  will  wend, 
Whether  through  vistas  of  peace,  on  to  Love's 

infinite  ocean, 
Or  through  dark  devious  ways,  seeking  the  silt 

of  the  sewer. 

Dead  is  the  light  in  thine  eyes,  yet  Recollection 

beholds  them, 
Beaming  with  beauty  like   stars   mirrored   in 

slumbering  seas; 
Where  through  the  darkness  they  dream,  till 

the  warm  kiss  of  the  morning, 
Or  the  wild  breath  of  the  gale,  drowns  them 

in  wave-woven  foam. 


THE  DEAD  CALYPSO 

Thus  when  the  Roses  of  Love  blushed  with 

the  Poppies  of  Passion, 
Crowning  our  cup  of  Desire,  hid  in  the  draught 

was  a  charm, 
Which  when  thy  lips  fell  from  mine,  sighing 

and  sated,  would  soothe  thee 
Into  a  deep,  dreamless  swoon  where  the  bright 

violet  beams 
Faded   away   from   thine   eyes,   which   in   the 

sensuous  slumber 
Shone  'neath  their  uplifted  lids  white  as  the 

lilies  of  Death. 
Moistened  with  ecstasy's  tears  were  the  rapt 

azures  when  turning 
Into  thy  love-laden  brain,  there  Passion's  secret 

to  find; 
Blind   were   their   opaline   orbs,   on   which    I 

looked  with  amazement, 
Till  my  lips,  clinging  to  thine,  coaxed  the  lost 

irises  back. 

Now  under  curtains  of  wax,  lustreless  crescents 

of  whiteness, 

85 


THE  DEAD  CALYPSO 

Cold  as  the  frost  on  the  pane,  hint  of  those 

rapturous  hours; 
Where  is  their  luminous  gleam,  which  like  the 

treacherous  beacons 
Lighted  by  wreckers   to   lure  mariners   on   to 

their  doom, 
O'er  Life's  unpiloted  sea  shone  with  a  bale  and 

a  beauty, 
Till  the  poor  credulous  bark  dashed  on  the  rock 

of  thy  heart? 

Springtide    of    Life   when    the    Soul,    hearing 

Love's  wakening  whisper, 
Glows  in  the  flame  that  Desire  lights  in  the 

blood  to  betray! 
Summer   that   seethes   in   the   veins,   purpling 

Lust's  grapes  for  the  crushing, 
Which,  in  a  wine-press  of  Pain,  leave  the  black 

dregs  of  Despair! 

This  I  was  taught  when  thy  heart,  drunk  with 
delirious  passion, 

86 


THE  DEAD  CALYPSO 

Changed  to  a  charnel  where  lurked  ghosts  of 

thy  deep-buried  past, 
Which  from  their  sepulchre  stole  once  in  a  still 

starless  midnight, 
Bearing  a  chalice,  rose-wreathed,  drugged  with 

the  lees  of  dead  loves. 
Draining  the  perilous  draught,  swift  through 

my  pulses  the  purple 
Rushed  while  our  wet  mingling  mouths  crushed 

the  rich  raptures  that  curse; 
Then  learned  I  Lust's  lurid  lore,  whispered  by 

thee,  whom  I  worshiped, 
Whom  I  had  deemed  half  divine,  shrined  as 

a  saint  in  my  heart. 
Oh,  how  it  leaped  when  thy  lips,  voicing  thy 

vows  meretricious, 
Sighed  like  a  girl's  whose  pure  love  murmurs 

with  virginal  bliss! 
Ah,  how  it  bled  when  they  turned,  babbling 

in  sleep  that  betrayed  them, 
Seeking  mine  own  in  the  dark,  breathing  some 

lost  lover's  name! 

87 


THE  DEAD  CALYPSO 

Swiftly  the  meshes  of  silk  spun  into  steel,  but 

I  lingered, 
Fondling  the  fetters  I  feared,  fearing  to  fling 

them  away; 
Lost  to  the  lips  I  had  loved,  yet  with  the  thirst 

of  a  drunkard 
Draining  the  draught  that  enslaved  e'en  while 

the  spirit  recoiled. 
Day  after  day,  as  the  scales  fell  from  mine  eyes, 

I  beheld  thee 
Garbed  in  the  glamour  of  Lust,  rise  from  the 

ashes  of  Love. 
Night  after  night,  though  my  fears,  lulled  by 

thy  lips,  fled  like  phantoms, 
Soon  every  sigh  that  I  heard  seemed  but  a  hiss 

from  the  grass ; 
Even  thy  sob  of  farewell  stifled  a  laugh  when 

I  left  thee 
Coming  at  last,  dear,  to  lay  Love's  chrismal  lips 

on  thy  brow. 

Long,  long  ago  in  the  past,  God's  proud  and 
white-pinioned  angels 


THE  DEAD  CALYPSO 

Found  in  the  daughters  of  Earth  all  that  their 

souls  could  desire; 
Why  should  I  wonder  that  thou,  fairest  and 

frailest  of  women, 
Didst  with  thy  sorceries  snare  the  souls  and  the 

bodies  of  men? 

Where  are  thy  worshipers  now,  they  who  did 

pant  to  embrace  thee? 
Where  is  the  homage  they  breathed  deep  in 

these  death-deafened  ears? 
Where  are  the  gems  and  the  gold,  offered  with 

love,  that  could  make  thee 
Faithless  to  him  whose  cold  lips  whisper  of 

passionless  peace? 


GIVE   ME   THY   LIPS 

GIVE  me  thy  lips,  and  let  me  feel 

That  they  forgiveness  grant 
For  much  that  these  poor  rhymes  reveal, 
Give  me  thy  lips,  and  let  me  feel 
The  raptures  that  once  made  me  reel, 

That  through  these  verses  pant. 
Give  me  thy  lips,  and  let  me  feel 

That  they  forgiveness  grant. 


THE   DREAM 

ON  thy  white  breast  that  mocks  the  snow 

Once  in  a  dreaming  hour  I  leaned; 
I  felt  thy  placid  pulses  glow, 

As  from  thy  modest  mouth  I  gleaned 
The  rosy  raptures  that  eclipse 

The  joys  that  waking  wooers  know, 
And  then  I  laid  my  fervid  lips 

On  thy  white  breast  that  mocks  the  snow. 

Oh,  how  thy  heart  responsive  beat 

With  new-born  passion's  blinding  bliss 
That  calmed  the  conscience  that  would  cheat 

And  chide  me  from  that  glowing  kiss! 
O  clinging  limbs!    O  yielding  breast! 

O  lips  unlessoned!   yet  replete 
With  passion,  yearning  to  be  pressed; 

Oh,  how  thy  heart  responsive  beat! 


THE    KING   IS    DEAD,    LONG   LIVE 
THE    KING! 

WHEN  Villon  sang  the  melted  snows, 
The  white  shroud  of  a  buried  year, 

Say,  did  the  traitor  winds  disclose 
Their  hiding-place,  or  tell  him  where 
Were  laid  the  dead,  the  debonair 

Lost  women  whom  he  loved  to  sing? 
No,  but  they  sighed,  then  answered  clear, 

The  King  is  dead,  long  live  the  King! 

Why  weep  the  love-surrendered  Rose? 

Is  faded  beauty  worth  a  tear? 
On  yonder  stem  another  grows, 

In  fresher  fragrance  hanging  there; 

While  in  the  waking  breeze  we  hear 
The  love-song  of  the  joyous  Spring 

Shouting  above  old  Winter's  bier, 
The  King  is  dead,  long  live  the  King! 

92 


THE  KING  IS  DEAD,  LONG  LIVE  THE  KING! 

And  thus  the  cycling  measure  goes; 

One  day  fond  lips  allegiance  swear; 
The  next  the  fickle  wanton  throws 

Her  eyes  on  some  new  cavalier, 

Who  for  a  season  short  may  wear 
Her  favors,  in  his  turn  to  fling 

Them  to  the  winds  for  one  more  fair; 
The  King  is  dead,  long  live  the  King! 


ENVOY 

Prince,  when  you  listen  to  the  cheer 
Which  through  your  crowded  courts  shall  ring, 

Remember,  thus  they  '11  hail  your  heir, 
The  King  is  dead,  long  live  the  King! 


93 


THE    CRIMSONED    GIFT 

IF  I  thy  naked  spirit  could  behold, 
As  oft  thy  classic  comeliness  IVe  seen, 
Garbed  only  in  its  beauty,  and  I  ween 

That  Fate  to  few  e'er  gave  a  fairer  mould, 

I  wonder  what  the  vision  would  unfold! 
Thy  flesh,  tho'  fair,  enshrines  a  soul  whose  sheen 

Is  radiant  too,  and  though  by  Love  controlled, 
Love  is  divine  if  it  no  malice  mean. 

Or  if  thy  heart  within  my  hand  were  laid, 

:     Brought  bleeding  to  me  from  thy  white  wan 

breast, 

And  every  ruddy  drop  were  voluble 
To  answer  me;   with  faith,  all  unafraid, 
I'd  kiss  the  crimsoned  gift,  though  it  confessed 
That  which  in  life  it  lacked  the  strength  to  tell. 


94 


ADIEU    D'AMOUR 

FAITHFUL  in  every  fibre  of  thy  heart, 
And  all  as  beautiful  as  thou  art  true, 

Yet  if  it  be  thy  wish  that  we  should  part 
Let 's  unkiss  all  our  vows  and  say  Adieu. 

The  love  that  glowed  so  warmly  in  thy  breast 
Is  dying  slowly, — shall  we  let  it  die? — 

Yea,  if  the  flickering  flame  brings  thee  unrest, 
My  tears  shall  drown  it  as  I  weep  Good-by. 

Good-by ?    Ah,  no !    We  cannot  break  the  chain ; 

The  fetters  fused  in  Passion's  crucible 
Are  hard  to  sever;   so  we  must  remain 

Bound  to  each  other,  though  we  sigh  Farewell. 


95 


ENGLAMOURED 

THERE'S  a  love  that  every  other  love  excelleth, 
And  its  glamour  doth  outglow  the  noonday 


sun; 


T  is     the     faith     that    with    suspicion     never 

dwelleth, — 

Tis  the  rapture  that  is  reckless  to  outrun 
The  fond  hope  that  every  compassed  joy  sur 
passes, 

That  but  lives  to  realize  thy  blest  embrace; 
They  may  bid  me  look  on  thee  through  Doubt's 

dark  glasses, 
But  I  only  see  the  beauty  of  thy  face. 


HAPPY   DAYS 

THERE  is  no  music  like  the  merry  clink 
Of  glasses  when  some  fair  one's  health  we  drink; 
There  is  no  toast  more  fitting  than  the  phrase 
My  mistress  murmurs:   it  is,  "Happy  Days!" 

Wet  with  the  wine,  her  red  lips  part  to  show 
Pearls  that  are  whiter  than  the  winter  snow; 
The  amber  beads  that  glitter  in  the  glass 
Blush  crimson  as  her  rose-leaf  lips  they  pass. 

The  mirth,  the  music,  and  the  wit  and  wine 
With  whispered  word  and  kindling  kiss  combine 
To  fan  within  my  heart  the  flame  that  lights 
The  way  from  happy  days  to  heavenly  nights. 

O  Heavenly  Nights!    An  Arctic  winter  were 
Too  short  to  linger  by  the  side  of  her, 
Whose  lips  would  make  it  seem  a  night  in  June, 
On  whose  brief  bliss  the  dawn  would  break  too 
soon. 


97 


LUST'S   TIGER   TEETH 

BUT  till  thy  heart  is  mine  and  mine  is  thine, 

All  passion  will  be  pale  'twixt  thee  and  me. 

Compare  it  now  with  what  it  then  would  be, 
That  were  to  liken  water  unto  wine. 
If  thou  wert  fair  as  she  before  whose  shrine 

A  world  doth  kneel — the  foam-born  deity — 
And  I  a  god,  did  not  our  souls  combine, 

Our  passion-prompted  vows  were  perjury. 

The  brute  within  the  blood  may  ramp  and  rave, 
Or  fawn  and  fondle,  till  the  tender  tone 

Of  Love's  soft  sigh  is  counterfeited  well; 
But  't  is  the  flesh  that  for  the  flesh  doth  crave, 
Lust's  tiger  teeth  that  tear  us  to  the  bone, 
To  leave  us  at  the  last  in  living  hell. 


WHAT   GHOSTS   ARE   THESE? 

i 

How  thy  blood-kindling  kisses  answer  mine 
When  locked  in  thy  voluptuous  limbs  I  lie! 
How  heart  to  heart  and  pulse  to  pulse  reply 

And  bring  the  blushes  that  incarnadine 

Thy  velvet  cheeks!    How  those  wet  lips  of  thine 
Murmur  to  me  the  soft  surrendering  sigh, 
That  means  the  moment  of  our  bliss  is  nigh, 

In  which  the  currents  of  our  love  combine! 

Delirious  dream!  What  ghosts  are  these  that  stalk 
Into  the  breathless  after-pause  to  freeze 
The  blood  that  burned  and  clamored  for 

thy  charms? 

Dark  demons  they,  who  come  thy  vows  to  mock, 
And  wake  imagination  till  it  sees 

Thy  beauty  panting  in  another's  arms. 


99 


THE    SWOON 

I  HAVE  swooned  near  to  death  in  those  white 

arms  of  thine, 

Till  the  trance  that  enthralled  me  hath  grown 
To  a  dream  where  the  glories  of  heaven  were 

mine, 

Then  have  waked  on  thy  bosom  to  own 
That  the  seraphs  who  stroll  through  the  regions 

above 

Never  know  the  rare  bliss  that  I  feel 
When  I  wander  with  thee  where  the  labyrinths 

of  Love 
Their  most  exquisite  raptures  reveal. 

I  have  looked  on  the  stars  till  my  listening  ears 

Have  been  filled  with  the  strains  of  the  blest; 
But  my  soul  a  more  eloquent  harmony  hears 

In  the  dreams  that  I  dream  on  thy  breast; 
Tis  the  low  blissful  beat  of  a  heart  that  replies 

With  a  passionate  love  unto  mine; 
Tis  the  melody  heard  in  thy  murmuring  sighs 

When  my  being  is  blending  with  thine. 

IOO 


THE  SWOON 

I  have  walked  where  the  demons  of  Sorrow  and 

Pain 

Mock  the  memories  of  happier  days; 
I  have  drunk  the  dark  dregs  of  Despair  that 

remain 

In  the  cup  of  the  Love  that  betrays; 
But  thy  lips,  like  the  breath  of  a  spring  that 

has  fled, 

In  my  heart  have  awakened  once  more 
All  the  glorious  dreams  of  the  days  that  are  dead, 
And  their  peace  and  their  passion  restore. 


101 


VICTOR   LOVE 

TENDER,  melting  lips,  distilling 

Love's  rich  vintage,  sweet  and  rare; 

Trusting,  pleading  eyes,  now  filling 
With  the  bright  reproachful  tear, 

A  sob  so  sweet,  so  softly  low, 

A  breath  of  heaven,  a  knell  of  woe. 

Ah,  the  murmuring  and  the  sighing, 
And  the  tumult  in  each  breast! 

Heart  to  heart  is  now  replying, 
Victor  Love  is  crowned  and  blest; 

The  tyrant  sits  in  Reason's  throne, 

And  claims  the  kingdom  for  his  own. 

How  he  scatters  all  his  treasures 

On  his  subjects,  you  and  me, 
Golden  showers  of  Passion's  pleasures ; 

Godlike  mortals  now  are  we! 
What  care  we  for  the  sword  of  flame 
That  bars  the  gate  through  which  we  came! 

102 


VICTOR  LOVE 

What,  beloved,  art  thou  sobbing, 
Weeping  that  there  's  no  return  ? 

How  thy  timid  heart  is  throbbing! 
How  thy  cheeks  with  crimson  burn! 

My  kiss  shall  teach  thee  to  forget, 

And  love  shall  triumph  o'er  regret. 


103 


WITH    CAP   AND    BELLS 

WITH  cap  and  bells,  day  after  day, 
The  jester's  jolly  part  I  play. 

Yes,  "Motley  is  the  only  wear," 

The  only  fabric  that  will  bear 
Time's  touch  or  turn  Fate's  frown  away. 

The  wisest  in  the  world  are  they, 
Earth's  laughter-loving  ones,  who  stray 
Along  through  life  from  year  to  year, 

With  cap  and  bells, 

A  laugh  our  sorrow  can  allay, 

A  sigh  our  merriment  can  slay; 

Give  me  the  jest  that's  not  a  jeer, 
Give  me  the  smile  that's  not  a  sneer, 

And  you  may  crown  me  till  I  'm  gray 

With  cap  and  bells. 


104 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


O  SINGER  OF  THE  SEVEN  SEAS  ! 

(To  Rudyard  Kipling) 

WHEN  Triton's  thrilling  trumpet  tone 
Sang  first  across  the  restless  blue, 

From  East  to  West,  from  zone  to  zone, 
Such  witchery  o'er  the  waves  he  threw, 
That  Orpheus  from  his  lute  ne'er  drew 

Such  music  for  the  rocks  and  trees, 
As  that  which  o'er  the  billows  flew, 

O  Singer  of  the  Seven  Seas! 

That  sounding  shell  was  shoreward  thrown 

To  thee  by  Amphitrite,  who 
Now  hears  across  her  surges  blown 

The  wave-worn  ballads  that  she  knew 

Long,  long  ago;   but  there  were  few 
She  loved  to  listen  to  like  these 

Which  from  thy  lips  come  clear  and  true, 
O  Singer  of  the  Seven  Seas! 

105 


0  SINGER  OF  THE  SEVEN  SEAS! 

These  broad  blue  tides  we  call  our  own, 

Methinks  should  have  another  hue, 
For  in  their  deadly  deeps  is  sown 

The  flesh  of  many  a  fearless  crew. 

Though  for  our  Admiralty  we  strew 
To  shore  and  shark  the  fullest  fees, 

Still,  "Give  us  morel"  the  surges  sue, 
O  Singer  of  the  Seven  Seas! 

Not  for  the  "Meteor  Flag"  alone 

Dost  thou  all  other  song  eschew; 
We  hear  the  Liner's  engines  groan, 

We  feel  the  Freighter's  "bucking  screw"; 

The  Derelict  drifts  past  our  view, 
Scoffed  by  the  surge,  mocked  by  the  breeze, 

Storm-driven,  battered  and  perdu, 
O  Singer  of  the  Seven  Seas! 

Yet  not  alone  old  Ocean's  moan 
Thy  many  measures  doth  imbue; 

To  sing  the  soldier  thou  art  prone, 
Thy  ringing  rhymes  are  a  tattoo; 
106 


0  SINGER  OF  THE  SEVEN  SEAS! 

When  Tommy  Atkins  walks  askew, 
Or  stands  at  anything  but  ease, 

He  gets  from  thee  the  proper  cue, 
O  Singer  of  the  Seven  Seas! 

Familiar  forms  again  are  shown, 
Nor  would  we  from  this  verse  taboo 

The  "Rag  and  Hank  of  Hair  and  Bone," 
We  knew  her  well,  the  shallow  shrew, 
And  wonder  how  we  came  to  woo 

And  swear  our  love  on  bended  knees, 
But  long  ago  we  said  adieu, 

O  Singer  of  the  Seven  Seas! 

ENVOY 

This  somewhat  sorry  ambigu 

Smacks  of  the  ballade's  strict  decrees; 
Our  Muse  dislikes  the  stern  gooroo, 

O  Singer  of  the  Seven  Seas! 


107 


THE   TEARFUL   TROTH 

IT  is  a  tale  that  has  been  often  told, 

The  story  of  a  love  that  leaps  to  life 

And  blooms  in  beauty,  though  a  dark  distrust 

Lurks  ever  near  to  menace  and  destroy. 

It  is  the  legend  of  the  love  that  lives 
Through  doubting  days  and  through  the  har 
rowing  hours 

Of  long  and  lonely  nights;  the  love  that  dreams 
Of  unforgettable  and  feverish  things 
That  burn  within  the  blood  and  bring  again 
The  memory  of  the  murmured  midnight  vow, 
When  mutual  melting  lips  were  wont  to  tell 
The  thrilling  and — perhaps — the  tearful  troth. 

Ah,  fond  and  fair,  low-voiced  and  lovely-limbed, 
Made  of  the  classic  clay  that  wakens  men 
To  valorous  deeds,  or  drugs  them  with  desire, 
Until  they  dream  that  lust  and  love  are  one — 

108 


THE  TEARFUL  TROTH 

From  dawn  to  dark  I  see  thy  faultless  face, 
And  through  the  night  it  haunts  me,  till  I  feel 
That  I  could  gladly  give  my  life  to  live 
One  brief  but  blissful  hour  on  thy  white  breast. 

The  memories  of  the  past  cannot  outweigh 
My  world  of  present  woe;   I  feel  as  one 
Who,  worn  and  wearied  in  a  wilderness, 
Wherein  no  fountain  springs  or  food  is  found, 
Dreams  of  the  glorious  days  that  once  were  his, 
The  feast,  the  flagon,  and  the  flowers  and  fruit, 
And  hears  again  the  mocking  melody 
Of  one  familiar,  unforgotten  voice. 

k 

So  in  my  dreams  I  sometimes  feel  the  lips 
That  kissed  away  my  cares  and  chained  my  soul 
Within  a  charm  that  Time  can  never  break, 
Then  wake  to  wonder  if  I  ever  steal 
Into  thy  thoughts  as  thou  dost  into  mine. 


109 


I    LOVE   THEE   STILL 

I  LOVE  thee  still;    there's  not  a  day 
That  drags  its  dreary  length  away, 
From  dark  December  unto  June, 
Or  winter  night,  or  summer  noon, 
But  unto  thee  my  fancies  stray. 

Poor  heralds  of  my  heart  are  they 
Who  would  to  thee  my  love  convey 

And  woo  thee  with  the  wearying  tune, 

I  love  thee  still. 

Ah,  but  to  feel  thy  pulses  play, 

And  once  again  my  head  to  lay 

On  thy  white  breast!     For  such  a  boon, 
Though  thou  art  fickle  as  the  moon, 

My  lips  would  cling  to  thee  and  say 

I  love  thee  still. 


no 


WAIFS 

LOVE'S  kindest  kiss  oft  to  a  flame  hath  fanned 

A  latent  passion  and  consumed  the  best. 

One  morn  a  girl's  pure  lips  to  mine  were  pressed, 
And  Ruin's  dreaded  gulf  was  rainbow-spanned, 
O'er  which  we  passed  into  a  pleasant  land. 

But  when  that  night  she  wept  upon  my  breast, 
She  seemed  a  love-lost  angel  on  the  strand 

Of  some  strange  star,  wing-wearied  and  unblest. 

Not  all  unhappy,  still  we  drift  along, 

Down  the  wild  waters  of  Love's  waif-strewn  sea ; 

And  closer  do  we  cling  when  others  tell 
Of  that  dark  whirlpool  in  whose  eddies  strong, 
Frail  passion-freighted  lovers,  such  as  we, 
Are  dragged  by  undercurrents  down  to  hell. 


in 


TO  A  TREE 

OFT  hast  thou  bent  before  the  gale, 

And  heard  the  tempests  'round  thee  roar; 
Oft  hast  thou  found  their  fury  fail, 

As  down  on  thee  the  demons  bore; 

They  wounded  thee  in  many  a  war, 
But  still  thou  standest  unsubdued, 

To  battle  with  them  as  before, 
Mute  type  of  Patient  Fortitude. 

Though  vainly  they  thy  strength  assail, 

Of  scars  they  gave  thee  many  a  score; 
Though  thou  art  armored  with  the  mail 

That  fiercer  onslaughts  may  ignore; 

Still  many  a  limb  from  thee  they  tore 
And  on  the  plain  their  plunder  strewed, 

Trophies  that  Time  cannot  restore, 
Mute  type  of  Patient  Fortitude. 

112 


TO  A  TREE 

The  pleasant  pathways  of  the  dale 

Let  sighing  Strephon  still  explore; 
Yea,  he  may  have  the  flowery  vale 

And  fair-faced  Phyllis  there  adore. 

Thy  silent  shade  to  me  means  more. 
There  oft,  in  melancholy  mood, 

I  stroll  to  learn  thy  saving  lore, 
Mute  type  of  Patient  Fortitude. 

ENVOY 

To  calm  blue  skies  I  see  thee  soar, 
Forgetful  of  the  Borean  brood 

Harked  on  by  thunder-throated  Thor, 
Mute  type  of  Patient  Fortitude. 


GIVE  A  BEGGAR  A  HORSE  AND 
HE'LL   GALLOP  TO   HELL 

GIVE  a  pauper  a  purse  that  is  bursting  with  gold, 
And  the  meats  and  the  music,  the  women  and 

wine 

You  will  soon  in  a  profligate  pageant  behold, 
For  he  cannot  to  luxury's  limits  confine 
The  ambition  that  burns  in  his  blood  to  out 
shine 

Even  lavish  Lucullus,  whom  none  could  excel ; 
There  is  truth  in  the  phrase,  there  is  lore  in 

the  line, — 
Give  a  beggar  a  horse  and  he  '11  gallop  to  hell. 

He  may  rot  in  his  rags,  he  may  freeze  in  the  cold, 

He  may  snore  in  the  sewer,  or  crib  with  the  kine, 
He  may  crunch  the  hard  crust  that  is  charity- 
doled, 
He  may  share,  like  the  prodigal,  husks  with 

the  swine, 

All  of  poverty's  curses  may  in  him  combine, 
Till  the  dogs  that  licked  Lazarus  'gainst  him  rebel, 

But  I  say  it  again,  tho'  the  saying's  not  mine, 
Give  a  beggar  a  horse  and  he  '11  gallop  to  hell. 

114 


GIVE  A  BEGGAR  A  HORSE 

Ah,  what  pictures  the  portals  of  Pluto  unfold! 

What  diversions  the  devil  delights  to  design, 
When  the  clattering  hoofs  of  the  courser  con 
trolled 

By  the  pauper  are  heard  on  the  easy  incline! 
Then  Beelzebub  doesn't  take  long  to  divine 
Who  is  riding  so  hard,  for  he  knows  the  pace 

well, 
And  awaits  with  a  welcome  most  warm  and 

condign ; 
Give  a  beggar  a  horse  and  he  '11  gallop  to  hell. 

ENVOY 

You  must  pardon   me,   Prince,   if   this   envoy 

enshrine 
The  sad  lady  whom  Pluto  took  with  him  to 

dwell; 

But  to  fry  in  the  flame  near  the  fair  Proserpine, 
Give  a  beggar  a  horse  and  he  '11  gallop  to  hell. 


THE    CRUST   OF   CONTENT. 

HE  who  for  some  great  aim  hath  never  sought 
More  than  Life's  stern  demands  to  satisfy 

Climbs  closer  to  the  gods,  whose  needs  are  naught, 
Than  he  whose  sordid  soul  doth  multiply 
The  millions  which  he  vainly  dreams  will  buy 

The  calm  content  that  gold  hath  never  bought; 

Croesus  to  Solon  this  confessed  when  brought, 
Bankrupt  and  conquered,  to  the  stake  to  die. 

The  crust  that  balks  the  wolf  may  sometimes  be 
Sweet  as  the  manna  in  the  wilderness; 

'Tis  when  the  soul  forgets  the  flesh  to  stray 
Where,  in  the  realm  of  some  harmonious  dream, 
It  listens  to  the  whispered  words  that  bless, 
And  learns  the  charm  that  chides  the  world 
away. 


116 


FROM    CRYPT   AND    CHOIR 

FROM  crypt  and  choir  these  rhymes  are  penned. 
For  grief  and  gladness  in  them  blend; 

There  is  a  cell  beneath  Song's  fane, 

Where  many  a  prisoner  of  pain 
Hath  found  the  Muse  his  closest  friend. 

Above  his  couch  she  comes  to  bend, 
She  teaches  him  to  make  and  mend 
The  psalm  he  sues  her  to  obtain 

From  Crypt  and  Choir. 

She  makes  the  organ's  thunder  rend 
His  raftered  roof;    the  tones  descend 

And  flood  the  dungeon  with  their  strain; 

But  unto  her  he  turns  to  gain 
The  calmer  chords  she  loves  to  lend 

From  Crypt  and  Choir. 


117 


WE   MUST   SIT   SILENT  WHEN  THE 
DEVIL   DRIVES 

OF  all  the  sayings  and  the  saws  we  hear, 
The  precepts  and  the  proverbs,  new  or  old, 

While  many  fall  like  folly  on  the  ear, 

A  few  are  weighted  well  with  Wisdom's  gold, 
And  oft  some  philosophic  treasure  hold; 

Their  little  homilies  guide  many  lives; 

When  over  smooth  or  rocky  roadways  rolled, 

We  must  sit  silent  when  the  devil  drives. 

When  through  the  gloom  the  lights  of  home 
appear, 

To  welcome  us  across  the  wind-swept  wold; 
When  'round  the  blazing  hearth  we  gather  near, 

Safe-shielded  from  the  tempest  and  the  cold; 

Then,  while  some  song  is  sung  or  story  told, 
Fate,  from  the  freezing  world  without,  arrives 

And  like  a  wolf  glares  on  the  sheltered  fold; 
We  must  sit  silent  when  the  devil  drives. 

118 


WE  MUST  SIT  SILENT  WHEN  THE  DEVIL  DRIVES 

The  future  may  be  faced  without  a  fear; 
If  through   the   past  we  have   not  blindly 

strolled, 
It  often  lends  a  light  to  lead  us  where, 

Havened  in  peace,  our  hearts  may  be  con 
soled; 

Though  Destiny  by  Fate  is  oft  controlled, 
Yet  when  the  heart  upholds  the  hand  that  strives, 
Fortune    and    Fame    o'er    Failure    may   be 

scrolled, 
Though  we  sit  silent  when  the  devil  drives. 

ENVOY 

Prince,  many  a  man  for  years  has  been  cajoled 
And  buffeted  by  Fate,  yet  still  survives; 

But  till  we  slumber  softly  in  the  mould, 
We  must  sit  silent  when  the  devil  drives. 


119 


JOB 

MAJESTIC  Mourner!    When  thy  spirit  moaned 
Itself  to  music  on  thy  matchless  page, 

When    thy   great   sorrowing   soul    in    anguish 

groaned, 

And  when  Fate  flung  to  thee  her  galling  gage, 
Oh,  what  a  soul-sustaining  heritage 

Was  hidden  in  the  fortitude  that  owned 
How  vain  and  weak  it  were  a  war  to  wage 

With    Him,    the    Lord,    who    sits    in    heaven 
enthroned. 

Thy  flesh  was  fed  to  foulness,  Sorrow  clad 
Thy  soul  with  sackcloth,  and  thy  forehead 

frowned 

With  the  black  ashes  of  a  heart  consumed. 
But  through  it  all,  O  Man  of  Uz,  thy  sad 
But  sure  philosophy  thy  trials  crowned 
With  perfect  peace  that  out  of  patience 
bloomed. 


120 


THE    HIDDEN    HAND 

THE  hidden  hand  that  strikes  the  mystic  chords 
Which  wake  Love's  rapturous  and  responsive  thrill 
In  kindred  hearts,  oft  sweeps  the  sobbing  strings 
Of  Sorrow,  till  soul  whispers  unto  soul 
The  symphony  that  chides  our  tears  away 
And  turns  Grief's  midnight  to  a  golden  dawn. 


121 


LOVE   ME   ONCE   MORE 

LOVE  me  once  more.    Ah,  what  have  I  to  do 
With  love,  or  what  has  love  to  do  with  me? 
And  yet  thy  face  by  day  and  night  I  see, 

And  with  this  prayer  my  soul  doth  thine  pursue, 

Love  me  once  more. 

Love  me  once  more,  and  it  will  teach  the  pen, 
That  pleads  so  feebly  to  thee  on  this  page, 
To  tell  lorn  lovers,  in  some  after  age, 

That  love,  though  dead,  may  leap  to  life  again. 

Love  me  once  more;  for  as  the  hart  doth  pant 
To  drink  the  water-brooks,  I  thirst  for  thee; 
Here,  in  the  waste  of  life,  I  bend  the  knee 

And  murmur  like  a  famished  mendicant, 

Love  me  once  more. 

122 


LOVE  ME  ONCE  MORE 

Love  me  once  more;  and  these  poor  rhymes  I 

write 
In  thrilling  trumpet  tones  shall  sound  thy 

name, 

Till  it  shall  echo  where  the  Peaks  of  Fame 
Are  bathed  forever  in  ambrosial  light. 

Love  me  once  more.    Dost  thou  no  longer  heed 
That  which  had  once  been  life's  supremest 

prize? 

And  wilt  thou  now  the  proffered  gift  despise 
And  turn  away  to  mock  me  as  I  plead 

Love  me  once  more? 


123 


THE    PROMISED    PEACE 

IT  is  the  season  when  we  turn  again 

The  pages  of  the  past  and  pause  to  read 

Of  One  who  gave  unto  the  sons  of  men, 
Long  years  ago,  the  best  and  purest  creed 
That  ever  proved  its  word  in  worth  and  deed; 

And  though  the  tidings  to  the  shepherds  told 
Are  unfulfilled,  again  we  hear  and  heed 

The  hymn  the  hosts  of  heaven  sang  of  old, 
What  time  from  star  to  star  their  hallelujahs  rolled. 

Now  tho'  we  look  with  reverence  on  the  past, 

And  with  fond  faith  its  sacred  story  tell, 
Yet  have  the  mists  of  Mammon  o'er  us  cast 
The  bane  of  unbelief,  until  we  dwell 
Within  the  dark  indifference  of  a  spell 
Which  Christ  himself  should  come  again  to 
break; 

124 


THE  PROMISED   PEACE 

That  bard  were  base  as  he  whose  cold  kiss 

fell 

Upon  the  Saviour's  cheek,  did  he  forsake 
The  truth  for  fictioned  phrase,  or  with  false  fingers 
take 

From  out  the  treasured  past  one  grain  of  gold 
To  gild  with  flattering  pen  a  present  pride; 
And  for  the  future, — no  man  may  behold 
And  chart  the  crafty  currents  of  that  tide 
Down  which  it  is  our  destiny  to  glide 
To  where,  across  Time's  trackless  waters,  roll 
The  black  and  baffling  mists  of  Death  that 

hide 

The  unknown  bourne,  which  to  man's  dream 
ing  soul 

Shines  ever  through  the  gloom,  a  hope-created 
goal. 

The  promised  peace  to  earth  has  never  come, 
And  never  will,  as  long  as  man  shall  hear 

The  blaring  bugle  and  the  muttering  drum 
Call  him  from  kith  and  country  on  to  where 

125 


THE  PROMISED  PEACE 

The  hosts  of  Greed  and  Glory  skyward  rear 
Their  crimson-colored  banners  to  his  gaze; 

The  while  the  lusts  of  loot  and  empire  sear 
His  soul  to  selfish  ends  and  sordid  ways 
That  mock  the  Star  of  Peace  that  did  o'er  Beth 
lehem  blaze. 

Or  worse  than  War's  shrill  clarion  that  wakes 

The  sleeping  thunder  for  some  foreign  foe, 

Is  the  soul-slaying  thirst  for  gold  that  slakes 

Its  craving  where  far  better  blood  doth  flow. 

No  Roman  triumph  in  the  past  could  show 

Captives  chained  closer  to  the  chariot  wheel, 

*  -    Than  Mammon's  modern  conquerors,  who 

know 

No  creed  but  gold,  whose  hearts  can  never  feel 
The  peace  that  passeth  all  their  vaunted  vaults 
reveal. 

The  flesh  is  more  than  raiment,  and  the  life 
Is  more  than  meat;  yet  we  the  truth  disdain, 

And  struggle  blindly  in  a  ceaseless  strife, 
For  what,  when  won,  to  ashes  oft  doth  wane. 
126 


THE  PROMISED   PEACE 

We  labor  on  with  hand  and  heart  and  brain, 
But  at  the  best  we  build  upon  the  sand; 

The  peace  we  long  for  ever  doth  remain 
Beyond  the  aching  heart  and  outstretched  hand, 
And  seems  a  myth  that  man  may  never  understand. 

Beneath  the  burden  of  the  primal  curse 

We  toil  and  sweat,  but  could  more  bravely 

bend 
And  bear  the  galling  yoke,  yea,  were  it  worse, 

If  we  but  knew  what  waits  us  in  the  end; 

Or  if  we  could  back  through  the  ages  wend 
And  hear  Pan's  reeds,  Apollo's  peerless  lyre,   : .; 

See  Cytherea  from  the  foam  ascend, 
And  Hera's  eyes  blaze  with  a  jealous  ire; 

Ah,  glorious  golden   days,  what  more  could  man 

. 

desire? 

The  gods  and  myths  of  Greece  have  never 

flown 

From  field  and  mountain  and  from  grove 
and  stream; 

127 


THE  PROMISED  PEACE 

They  ever  live,  but  we  ourselves  have  grown 
Blind  to  the  beauty  of  the  splendid  dream 
That  thralled  man's  senses  ere  the  searching 

beam. 
Of  Science  shone  with  rapture-wrecking  ray, 

Before  the  din  of  dynamo  and  steam 
Moaned  Fancy's  dirge  and  drove  us  forth  to 

stray 
Far  from  the  pictured  night  into  the  dreamless  day. 

Now,  though  the  fountain  of  our  faith  be  dry, 
And  in  Life's  waste  no  cooling  stream  ap 
pears, 

Hark!  to  the  chorus  rolling  through  the  sky! 
It  calls  across  the  desert  of  the  years 
And  chides  our  pagan  dreams  and  skeptic 

sneers. 

For  from  the  lesson  of  His  love  we  learn 
The  faith  that  falters  not,  the  hope  that 

cheers 
Life's  darkest  hours,  and  through  Him  we 

may  turn 

Into  the  path  that  leads  to  that  for  which  we  yearn. 

128 


TEARS 

COULD  I  but  crystallize  these  midnight  tears 
And  gather  from  their  beaded  bitterness 
A  rosary  for  burning  lips  to  press, 

Some  pain-born  token  of  these  joyless  years 

To  teach  the  faith  that  saves,  the  hope  that  cheers, 
Then  would  I  bid  these  fountains  of  distress 
Flow  fast  and  free,  if  their  sad  floods  could  bless, 

Or  murmur  peace  in  some  poor  sufferer's  ears. 

Have  I  not  known,  O  God! — have  I  not  felt 
The  benediction  of  another's  verse 

Steal  o'er  me  in  the  dark  and  lonely  hour? 
Hath  it  not  made  my  stubborn  heart  to  melt, 
And  turned  to  prayer  the  deep  rebellious  curse, 
And  soothed  my  soul  to  rest  with  saving 
power? 


129 


JUBILATE    DEO 

;  ,  :  :    (A.  D.  1897) 

RIGHTEOUS    Ruler,    Royal    Lady,    throned    in 

majesty  and  splendor, 
Thou,  before  whose  matchless  prestige  all  the 

past  and  present  pale, 
Hear  the  world-encircling  chorus  which   thy 

many  millions  render, 

Hear  our  mighty  Jubilate,  Sovereign-Queen 
and  Empress,  Hail! 

While  thy  white-walled  island  shaketh  with  the 

message  that  is  pouring 
From  thy  thunder-throated  warders  as  they 

tell  it  to  the  deep ; 
While  the  heaven-storming  anthem  now  above 

the  clouds  is  soaring, 

While  the  bounding  heart  of  Britain  doth 
with  exultation  leap, 
130 


JUBILATE  DEO 

All  along  the  seas  the  echo  rolleth  till  Earth's 

corners  listen, 
Mighty  marts  and  commerce-crowded  ports 

and  rivers  hear  it  swell; 
Lonely  islands  of  the  ocean,  set  in  tropic  tides 

that  glisten 

Into  gladness,  speed  it  onward,  and  the  tale  of 
triumph  tell. 

Where  the  dawn  of  new  dominion  into  splendid 

noon  is  glowing, 
And  the  bright  prophetic  legend  over  Afric 

skies  is  scrolled; 

Where  thy  sons  the  seeds  of  empire  with  ambi 
tious  hands  are  sowing, 

There  they  think  of  thee  and  England,  and 
their  song  is  skyward  rolled. 

Hark!    while   India's   dusky  myriads   in  their 

many  tongues  proclaim  thee; 
Mighty  Empress  of  the  East,  three  hundred 
millions  to  thee  call; 
131 


JUBILATE  DEO 

There  from  Scinde  to  far  Sadiya,  now  again  we 

hear  them  name  thee, 

Now  again  their  mingling  voices  ring  from 
Gilgit  down  to  Galle. 

Where    in    unfamiliar   beauty   Night's    bright 

lamps  are  hung  in  heaven, 
While  the  starry  crux  is  dying  in  the  dawn  of 

Austral  skies, 
There  the  cannonading  chorus  flashes  forth  from 

lips  of  levin, 

And  o'er  sunny  seas  of  sapphire  on  from  isle 
to  island  flies. 

Drowned  to-day  the  mighty  music  of  Niagara's 

falling  river, 
Lost  in  pure  Pacific  paeans  mingling  with 

Atlantic's  roar; 
Mountain,  field,  and  lake  are  listening,  into  life 

the  forests  quiver, 

For  they  hear  Vancouver  calling  unto  lonely 
Labrador. 

132 


JUBILATE  DEO 

Many  a  bivouac  and  barrack  hear  the  reveille 

rejoicing, 
Many  a  citadel  and  fortress  frowning  over 

foreign  foam, 
Know  the  music  of  that  bugle,  and  with  tongues 

of  thunder  voicing 

Forth  a  great  lo  Triumphe,  roll  an  answer 
ing  message  home. 

Where  the  sheltering  flag  of  England  over  land 

and  sea  is  streaming, 
Where  beneath  a  foreign  banner  British  hearts 

beat  quick  with  pride, 
Where   across   the   trackless   waters   England's 

ships  are  swiftly  steaming, 
Where  her  barks  with  tempests  battle,  or  at 
anchor  safely  ride, 

There  thy  liegemen  now  salute  thee,  for  wher 
ever  they  may  wander, 

'Neath  that  flag  is  always  England,  but  to-day 
it  is  a  shrine 

133 


JUBILATE  DEO 

Where  they  kneel  and  on  her  thousand  years  of 

matchless  glory  ponder, 
Rising  never  to  forget  the  brightest  of  them 
all  are  thine. 

Where  the  home  and  hearth  are  sacred,  yea, 

wherever  women  glory 
In  the  virtue  that  men  value,  where  in  every 

land  they  dwell 
For  long  years  they  Ve  learnt  to  love  and  linger 

o'er  thy  stainless  story, 

And  a  world  of  women's  voices  of  another 
empire  tell. 

Golden  mists  of  sixty  summers  melt  and  we 

again  behold  thee, 
Maiden-monarch,  sceptred,  symboled,  throned 

and  crowned  as  England's  Queen; 
There  the  promise  of  the  present  with  its  glory 

aureoled  thee, 

While  the  ancient  Abbey's  arches  never  bent 
o'er  grander  scene. 
134 


JUBILATE  DEO 

Then  we  see  thee  wife  and  mother,  tranquil  days 

of  joy  whose  fleetness 
Grandeur,  glory,  power,  and  prestige  could 

not  for  a  moment  stay; 
Days  that  dawned  in  peace  and  compassed  every 

rare  domestic  sweetness, 

Till  a  life-enshrouding  shadow  fell  across  thy 
cloudless  way. 

From  thy  lips  the  lurking  Spoiler  dashed  the  cup 

of  all  thy  gladness, — 
O  ye  Mountains  of  Gilboa!   tears  were  then 

your  dews  and  rain; 
Then  from  Dan  to  Beersheba  all  the  land  was 

filled  with  sadness, 

For  our  grief  with  thine  was  mingled  when 
thy  lofty  mate  was  slain. 

Ah,  we  miss  thy  minstrel  Merlin,  who  with  swift 

unfaltering  fingers 

Taught    the    sounding    Harp    of    England 
Honor's  hymn  and  Sorrow's  tale; 
135 


JUBILATE  DEO 

Over  many  a  song  immortal,  sung  to  thee,  how 

Memory  lingers, 

Till  we  almost  hear  his  voice  and  see  the  guid 
ing  Gleam  and  Grail! 

Nay,  the  Gleam  is  ever  with  us ;  thou  for  sixty 

years  hast  worn  it, 
'T  is  the  guiding  light  of  England,  Glory's 

star  and  Honor's  ray; 
On   thy   forehead  now   it   resteth,   Truth   and 

Righteousness  adorn  it, 

And  it  still  shall  lead  us  onward,  as  it  lights 
our  path  to-day. 

Now  tho'  Court  and  Camp  and  Cloister,  Art 

and  Song  around  thee  cluster, 
Till  the  glory  that  enfolds  thee  seemeth  more 

of  heaven  than  earth, 
Yet  it  cannot  for  one  moment  blind  us  to  the 

brighter  lustre 

Of  the  the  faith  that  never  faltered,  of  the 
woman's  splendid  worth. 
136 


JUBILATE  DEO 

Though  with  triumph  and  with  pageant  and 

with  paean  we  extol  thee, 
As  we  lift  thee  and  enthrone  thee  on  the  height 

of  England's  fame, 
Yet  thy  three-times-twenty  years  of  blameless 

womanhood  enroll  thee 

With  a  halo  that  outshineth  all  thy  gemmed 
tiara's  flame. 

Now  unto  the  King  of  Kings,  the  Lord  of  Hosts, 

the  God  of  Nations, 
On  whose  Truth  for  strength  and  wisdom 

thou  with  fearless  faith  dost  lean, 
While  the  prayer  and  psalm  are  mingling  with 

an  Empire's  acclamations, 
Unto  Him  we  do  commend  thee,  Sovereign 
Lady,  Empress,  Queen! 


137 


WEARY 

NOT  as  a  means  of  grace 

And  hope  of  glory, — No. 
But  could  I  see  Thy  face 

And  hear  the  blessing  flow, 
As  when  Thy  living  lips  the  promise  poured, 
Then  would  I  kneel  and  wait  for  mercy,  Lord. 

Ye  weary,  come  to  me 

And  I  will  give  ye  rest. 
Have  I  not  bent  the  knee 

And  all  my  soul  confessed? 
Art  thou  a  myth,  O  God,  or  am  I  blind, 
Groping  in  gloom  for  peace  I  cannot  find. 

Oh,  shed  one  beam  of  light, 
And  when  my  flesh  is  wrung 

Through  agony's  long  night, 
When  all  my  life  is  hung 
138 


WEARY 

On  Retrospection's  cross,  and  when  the  spear 
Of  Conscience  strikes  my  soul,  then  be  Thou  near. 

Whisper  one  word  of  hope, 

That  my  faint  heart  may  know 
How  with  these  fears  to  cope, 
And  respite  gain  from  woe; 
Bind  up  my  wounds  and  breathe  the  healing  balm 
Of  one  kind  word,  to  comfort  and  to  calm. 

Not  for  a  heaven  unearned, 

Nor  to  escape  a  hell, 
My  lips  have  often  burned 
To  drink  of  Mercy's  well ; 

Yearning  in  that  sweet  flood  themselves  to  steep, 
And  drift  away  from  life  in  dreamless  sleep. 


139 


TO   THE   UNKNOWN    GOD 

SUPREME  Unknown,  whom  yet  we  trace 
But  dimly  through  a  darkened  glass, 
When  shall  the  mists  that  hide  Thee  pass, 

And  we  behold  thee  face  to  face? 

For  countless  ages  we  have  trod 
The  lower  trails  that  lead  to  Thee, 
Now  on  the  distant  heights  we  see 

The  banners  of  the  hosts  of  God. 

A  thousand  gods  have  we  confessed, 
And  warped  our  worship  age  by  age, 
Creed  blotting  creed  from  off  the  page, 

An  ever-changing  palimpsest. 

Long  through  the  gloom  Thy  skies  we  scanned; 

We  cried  to  Thee,  but  Thou  wert  dumb ; 

Yet  Faith  oft  heard  a  whispered  "Come," 
And  Fancy  felt  a  guiding  hand. 

140 


TO  THE  UNKNOWN  GOD 

Confirming  our  audacious  guess, 

Thy  lightnings  clove  the  clouds  and  seemed 
To  write  amen  to  all  we  dreamed, 

Thy  crashing  thunders  answered  "Yes." 

Altars  and  fanes  to  Thee  we  raised, 
Built  on  one  vague  but  constant  hope 
That  taught  us  through  the  gloom  to  grope, 

While  on  the  silent  stars  we  gazed. 

For  Thee  we  searched  the  skies,  then  turned 
The  glass  upon  the  atom,  till 
We  saw  the  life  within  it  thrill 

To  clasp  the  mightiest  star  that  burned. 

Life  yearning  unto  life,  the  spark 
Within  the  seed  that  bursts  the  sod 
Claims  kindred  with  the  unknown  God, 

But  never  leaps  the  bridgeless  dark. 

Hope  crying  in  the  gloom,  a  child 
Amid  strange  lights  and  shadows  lost, 
Twixt  doubt  and  fear  perplexed  and  tossed, 

By  any  whispered  word  beguiled. 

141 


TO  THE  UNKNOWN  GOD 

Unfaltering  faith  may  seek  to  tear 
And  sweep  the  baffling  veil  aside ; 
We  know  not  if  the  dead  deride 

Her  efforts,  but  the  living  hear 

Death  laughing  ever  at  her  creed, 
Blighting  each  promise  ere  it  bloom, 
Till  all  the  past  seems  but  a  tomb, 

And  every  hope  a  broken  reed. 

A  tomb!  a  broken  reed!  Ah  no! 
We  die,  but  dying  leave  behind 
That  which  may  teach  us  yet  to  find 

Where  Life's  immortal  waters  flow. 

A  thousand  ages  yet  unborn, 

Pregnant  with  promises  that  cast 
Their  beams  before,  may  bring  at  last 

The  birth-blaze  of  the  coming  morn. 

Within  the  growing  light  we  fade 
With  all  the  things  of  yesterday 
That  swift-paced  Progress  flings  away, 

Or  Science  scoffs  into  the  shade. 
142 


TO  THE  UNKNOWN  GOD 

Or  as  the  scattered  fragments  fly 
Beneath  the  Builder's  hand,  so  we 
Fall  from  the  fabric  that  shall  be 

A  temple  lifted  to  the  sky. 

Or  is  it  Babel  that  we  build 

Age  after  age  upon  our  dead? 

And  is  our  faith  a  fiction  fed 
On  dreams  as  vain  as  those  that  filled 

The  sons  of  Noah  when  they  toiled 
And  piled  the  tower  on  Shinar's  plain? 
Oh!    is  the  hope  we  cherish  vain, 

And  at  the  last  shall  we  be  foiled  ? 

Nay,  when  far  future  years  have  passed, 
Our  lives  shall  not  have  been  for  naught, 
For  out  of  bleak  oblivion  brought, 

We  shall  behold  Thy  face  at  last. 


143 


THE    CROSS  -  CROWNED    CAIRN 

A  WHISPERED  prayer,  a  stone  with  reverent  hand 

Laid  near  a  cross  that  on  a  cairn  doth  stand, 

This  and  no  more ;  no  fragrant  buds  to  wreathe 

A  garland  for  the  silent  dead  beneath; 

No  requiem  rolling  on  the  desert  air 

To  guide  us  to  the  lonely  sleeper  there; 

No  rudely  written  legend  to  proclaim 

His  birth,  his  death,  his  country,  age  or  name. 

Yet  never  vault,  from  dark  Machpelah's  cave, 
Where  Israel's  primal  patriarch  found  a  grave; 
Nor  yet  the  dome  that  Artemisia  raised 
O'er  Caria's  king,  at  which  a  world  amazed 
In  wonder  stood;   nor  Ghizeh's  gloomy  pile, 
Housing  the  haughtiest  Pharaoh  by  the  Nile, 
Nor  sacred  shrine,  nor  quiet  cloistered  fane, 
Whose   gloomy    crypts   Earth's   proudest   dust 

contain, 

E'er  sent  a  softer  slumber  than  these  stones 
Which  shelter  from  the  sun  a  wanderer's  bones. 

144 


THE  CROSS-CROWNED  CAIRN 

The  prayers  we  pray,  our  dirges  of  distress, 
'Neath  carven  arch,  or  in  the  wilderness, 
What  are  they  to  the  dead  ?    Oh,  who  can  say 
Where  the  dread  Spoiler  pauses,  if  the  clay 
Alone  surrenders  to  his  blighting  breath, 
Or,  whether  down  the  sombre  stream  of  Death, 
The  spirit,  drifting  into  darkness,  dies 
As  did  this  flesh  beneath  these  scorching  skies? 

It  is  not  so;   the  Symbol  that  doth  keep 
Its  lonely  vigil  on  yon  stony  heap 
Is  eloquent,  and  tells  of  Him  who  first 
Through  Death's  unbroken  barriers  did  burst. 
Of  Him  on  whom  a  world  has  learnt  to  lean, 
And  from  the  darkest  hours  of  grief  to  glean 
The  Hope  that  helps  when  other  comforts  fail, 
The  Faith  that  falters  not  before  the  veil, 
The  Love  that  prays  in  every  Christian  land, 
When  in  the  presence  of  the  dead  we  stand, 
That  though  the  dreamless  dust  may  never  wake, 
The  soul  may  somewhere  see  the  morning  break. 


145 


CONSOLATION 

A  SOB  of  sorrow  sounding  through  the  strings 

As  Recollection  ponders  on  the  past; 
Is  this  the  only  solace  Memory  brings 

To  soothe  a  soul  that  shivers  in  the  blast? 

How  soon  the  feast  was  followed  by  the  fast! 
How  quick  the  fruits  and  flowers  turned  to  dust! 

How  swift  the  waters  sped  on  which  I  cast 
The  bread  of  life,  that  cometh  back  a  crust! 

A  crust?    Ah,  no!    Though  barren  is  the  shore 

Of  that  once  tempting  tide  whose  waters  hold 

The  dreams  of  youth  that  in  their  depths 

were  drowned, 

Not  fruitless  is  the  flood;   its  waves  restore 
What  Folly  flung  to  them  a  thousand-fold, 
When  on  the  strand  some  pearl  of  song  is 
found. 


146 


THE    CAVERN   OF   GLOOM 

COME,  throw  those  white  arms  of  thine,  dear, 
around  me,  pillow  thy  fair  fervid  cheek 
on  my  breast, 

Listen  again  to  a  story  of  sorrow,  learn  how  the 
loneliest  heart  may  be  blest. 

Welcome  awaits  thee  whenever  thou  comest, 
morning  or  eventide,  midnight  or  noon, 

Or  when  the  tempests  of  winter  are  wailing,  or 
when  the  faint  fragrant  breezes  of  June 

Murmur  their  vesper  o'er  verdurous  meadows, 
soothing  to  slumber  the  birds  and  the 
flowers, 

Then,  when  the  gloom  gathers  deeper  and 
darker,  hearken  to  me  through  the  harrow 
ing  hours, 

Once  so  familiar,  but  now  all  forgotten,  faded 

and  lost  in  a  Faith  that  defies 
All  that  Despair  in  the  dark  ever  dreaded,  all 

that  Grief  glared  at  with  slumberless  eyes 
147 


THE  CAVERN  OF  GLOOM 

Aching  for  day  that  but  dawned  to  deride  me, 
longing  for  night  ere  to  noon  it  had  grown, 

Thus,  through  the  years  and  their  varying 
seasons,  reaping  the  whirlwind,  I  lingered 
alone. 

Vain  as  the  vanishing  fabrics  that  Fancy  builds 
in  a  waterless  waste  to  betray, 

So  in  Life's  desert  the  phantoms  I  followed, 
mirage-like,  mocked  me,  then  faded  away; 

Onward  I  went  till  the  bird-song  was  silent, 
dry  every  fountain  and  dead  every  bloom, 

Footsore  and  weary,  for  peace  ever  panting, 
came  I  at  last  to  the  Cavern  of  Gloom. 


Cold  as  a  charnel  and  black  as  Cimmerian 
midnight  the  goal  of  my  destiny  seemed, 

Little  I  thought  that  its  sombre  surroundings 
meant  the  dark  durance  that 's  never  re 
deemed. 

148 


THE  CAVERN  OF  GLOOM 

Meant  what  the  strongest  would  shrink  to 
encounter, — yea,  what  the  bravest  would 
fly  from  in  fear, 

Should  the  curse  come  like  a  bolt  that 's  death- 
freighted,  thundering  from  skies  that  are 
silent  and  clear; 

But  the  grim  harvest  that  Grief  weeps  to  garner, 
Fate  whispered  warningly  to  me  when  Life 

Leaps  in  the  pulses  and  laughs  at  the  future, 
strolling  where  Hebe's  red  roses  are  rife. 

Fancy  oft  smiled  through  the  shades  of  my 
prison,  breathing  the  words  that  were  sweet 
to  my  soul ; 

Oft  through  the  darkness,  all  weaponed  to 
wound  me,  Pain  with  his  merciless  myr 
midons  stole; 

Racked  me  and  flayed  me  and  tore  me  with 
torture,  till  near  the  last  this  great  lesson 
I  learned, — 

149 


THE  CAVERN  OF  GLOOM 

Misery's  midnight  may  glow  with  a  glory, 
flooding  the  Cavern  of  Gloom  till  it's 
turned 

Into  a  temple  that  soars  to  the  heavens,  reaching 

a  region  of  infinite  calm, 
Where  sacred  strains  of  ineffable  sweetness  roll 

from  an  organ  and  blend  with  a  psalm 

Crooned  as  a  slumber-song  soothing  to  sorrow, 
sung  as  a  blessed  placebo  to  pain 

By  the  clear  voices  of  white-pinioned  seraphs 
sent  through  the  shadows  my  soul  to  sustain. 


150 


THE   VANISHED   VINTAGE. 

WHEN  the  hopes  that  we  cherish,  the  dreams  that 
we  dream, 

And  the  joys  that  defraud  us  are  dead; 
When  the  Past  only  mocks  us  and  never  a  beam 

From  the  close-curtained  Future  is  shed; 
When  we  falter  and  fall,  as  we  grope  in  the  gloom, 

And  our  feet  with  the  thistles  are  torn, 
When  the  cankers  of  Conscience  begin  to  consume, 

Do  we  over  our  misery  mourn? 

Yea,  we  weep  as  we  think  of  the  vintage  we  crushed 

From  the  rich  ruddy  grapes  of  the  Past; 
And  we  dream  in  the  dark  of  the  faces  that  flushed 

With  a  beauty  that  mocked  at  the  blast; 
Through  the  long  lonely  night  and  the  desolate  day, 

When  our  folly  and  fate  we  deplore, 
Oft  the  ghosts  of  dead  pleasures  stalk  by  us  and  say, 

If  you  could  you  would  do  as  before? 


151 


ATAXIA 

MY  world  has  shrunk  at  last  to  this  small 

room, 

Where  like  a  prisoner  I  must  now  remain. 
Pd  rather  be  a  captive  in  the  gloom 

Of  some  deep  dungeon,  tearing  at  my  chain, 
For  then,  perchance,  my  freedom  I  might 

gain. 

Ah  God!  to  think  that  I  must  languish  here, 
Shackled  by  sickness  and  subdued  by  pain, 
To  die  a  living  death  from  year  to  year, 
Joy  banished  from  my  breast  and  Sorrow  brooding 
there! 

Yet  these  familiar  walls  do  sometimes  fade, 
Then  my  faint  eyes  on  fair  horizons  rest; 

By  Memory's  distant  lights  I  am  betrayed, 
And  Hope  a  moment  flutters  in  my  breast, 
Till  I  forget  that  I  am  all  unblest. 
152 


ATAXIA 

Unfettered  fancy  wanders  far  away 

To  where  the  lips  I  loved  and  often  pressed 
Seem  mine  once  more,  and  make  my  pulses 

play 

Anew  with  youth's  wild  heat  and  half  revive  this 
clay. 

I  often  think  how  once  these  stumbling  feet, 
That  now  can  scarcely  bear  me  to  my  bed, 
Were  swift  to  follow,  as  the  wind  is  fleet, 
The  baleful  beam  that  to  destruction  led; 
Nor  paused  I  till  the  lurid  light  had  fled, 
Till  on  mine  ears  there  broke  the  dismal  roar 
Of  that  black  stream  whose  waters  wail  the 

dead; 
Dumb  with  despair  I  stood,  and  from  that 

shore 
Saw  Charon's  ghostly  craft  and  heard  his  doleful  oar. 

Thou  domineering  power,  or  Love,  or  Lust, 

Or  Passion,  or  whatever  else  thou  art, 
Though  thy  red  roses  now  are  naught  but  dust, 

153 


ATAXIA 

What  splendid  spectres  from  their  ashes 

start! 

What  hunger  they  awaken  in  the  heart! 
What  fever  in  the  blood!    And  in  the  brain 
What  dreams  they  build  when  day's  dull 

hours  depart, 

And  Slumber  drives  away  the  demon  Pain, 
And  loosens  from  my  limbs  this  curst  ataxic  chain ! 

Then  Memory  wakes  and  through  the  dark 
ness  flies 

Afar  to  where  the  golden  past  appears, 
And  lingers  there  to  listen  to  the  sighs 
A  boy  is  breathing  in  a  wanton's  ears. 
Her  lips  taught  his  the  burning  kiss  that 

sears 
The  heart  'gainst  love,  but  lights  the  lust  that 

leaves, 

Or  soon  or  late,  an  aftermath  of  tears, 
When,  in  the  waste  of  life,  the  sower  grieves 
To  gather  from  the  gale  his  dead  and  withered 
sheaves. 

154 


ATAXIA 

I  shrined  her  as  a  saint  within  the  heart, 
'Gainst  which  her  own  had  leaped  a  thou 
sand  times; 

But  Fate  stepped  in  and  tore  our  lips  apart, 
And  drove  me  in  despair  to  distant  climes. 
Long  years  have  passed  since  then,  but  could 

these  rhymes 
Bring  back  that  leman  and  those  dreamed-of 

days, 
Their  strains  should  soar  to  where  celestial 

chimes 

Blend  with  seraphic  hymns  of  ceaseless  praise, 
And  from  the  dead,  cold  past  that  matchless  minion 
raise. 

Had  Time  but  halted  for  us  as  the  sun 

Stood  still  on  Gibeon  while  Joshua  strove! 
Ah  no,  the  silver  moon  of  Ajalon 

Would  have  looked  kindlier  on  those  nights 

of  love! 

Little  cared  we  for  sun  or  moon  above, 
Or  for  the  gems  upon  the  black-browed  night, 

155 


ATAXIA 

We    may    have    seen    them    through    the 

heavens  move, 
But  recked  not,  thought  not  of  their  wheeling 

flight, 

Blinded,  poor  love-sick  fools,  by  Passion's  daz 
zling  light. 

Oft  in  that  light's  fast-fading  afterglow 

Her  visioned  presence  unto  me  appears; 
And  as  I  first  beheld  her  long  ago, 

The  same  alluring  loveliness  she  wears; 
Oft  in  the  midnight  Recollection  hears 
A  sweeter  plaint  than  Pandion's  daughter's 

strain 

Murmured  by  lips  that  kiss  away  my  tears, 
While  in  my  dreams  I  clasp  her  form  again, 
Then  wake  with  outstretched  arms,  to  find  the 
vision  vain. 

Amongst  a  legion  of  lost  loves  her  face, 
Through  Memory's  mists,  seems  fairest  of 
them  all. 

156 


ATAXIA 

Though  heaven  was  mine  when  locked  in  her 

embrace, 

Yet  there  were  others,  whom  I  oft  recall, 
Who  wove  Lust's  purple  threads  through 

this  dark  pall 

Long  years  ago  in  Passion's  panting  loom, 
Before  Life's  honeyed  cup  had  turned  to 

gall, 

Or  yet  the  day  had  deepened  to  the  gloom 
That  wraps  me  like  a  shroud  within  this  living 
tomb. 

O  Marah!   Marah!   as  thy  bitter  stream 

Was  turned  to  sweetness  by  the  magic  tree, 
So  the  dark  current  of  my  years  doth  seem 
To  flow  at  times  in  murmuring  melody; 
'T  is  when,   dear  Lyric   Maid,   I   turn  to 

thee; 
Then  the  light  laughing  loves  of  other  days 

Hide  their  false  faces,  or  like  shadows  flee; 
Oft  had  I  fallen  in  these  cheerless  ways, 
But  heard  thy  whispered  words  that  rescue  and 
upraise. 

157 


ATAXIA 

Now  tho'  these  limbs  are  cold  and  almost  dead, 

And  torture  runs  through  every  sluggish  vein, 
Yet  is  endurance  out  of  suffering  bred, 

And  fortitude  to  triumph  over  pain; 

The  wasted  body  shrinks,  but  still  the  brain 
Urges  the  palsied  hand  along  the  sheet, 

On  which,  alas!  tears  sometimes  fall  like  rain; 
But  Fancy  even  Misery  can  cheat, 
And  in  the  pain-born  rhyme  oft  find  a  refuge  sweet. 

But  even  there,  the  Spoiler  with  his  scythe 
Torments  the  wasted  sheaf  he  waits  to  reap ; 

His  torturing  reminders  make  me  writhe, 
Till,  mad  with  pain,  I  beg  the  final  sweep 
That  surely  soon  must  come  to  give  me  sleep. 

Still  one  retreat  is  left,  to  which  I  flee; 

Dear  dreamy  draught!  in  which  I  often  steep 

Senses  and  soul,  I  turn  again  to  thee, 
And  drift  down  Lethe's  stream  out  on  Oblivion's  sea. 


158 


THE   LOOM 

A  WEARIED  weaver  at  the  loom,  I  gaze 

On  that  which  I  have  woven  till  mine  eyes 
Grow  dim  to  see  the  fabric  it  displays, — 

The  warp  of  all  my  work  seems  woofed  with 
sighs. 

No  more  for  me  Life's  shuttle  swiftly  flies, 
But  falters  feebly  through  the  fibred  maze, 

As  thread  on  thread  it  slowly  multiplies, 
Weaving,  alas!    a  weft  of  dreary  days. 

For  in  the  woven  meshes  there  appears 
The  sombre  shade  of  Sorrow.    Do  I  weave 

But  sackcloth  for  my  soul  ?    And  am  I  now 
But  one  who  gloats  upon  the  garb  he  wears, 
Who  in  the  shadow  sits  apart  to  grieve, 
The  ashes  of  his  life  upon  his  brow? 


SOME  PRESS  NOTICES  OF  POEMS  BY  LOUIS  ALEXANDER 
ROBERTSON. 

Could  I  but  make  explanation  of  the  term  sufficiently  comprehen 
sible,  I  would  readily  elect  to  call  Robertson  the  poet  a  Greek.  By 
so  denominating  him,  I  would  aim  to  express  in  a  word  the  dominant 
note  of  sensuous  classicism  that  pervades  his  singing.  There  is  in  it 
a  throbbing  vitality,  a  fearless  exaltation  of  the  body  urged  through 
the  very  adoration  of  the  mystery  of  creation.  A  handling  less  purely 
classic  would  put  such  verses  beyond  the  pale. 

In  all  his  work  exalted  spirit  and  suspension  of  the  clear  note  from 
beginning  to  end  make  beauty  in  the  lines.  Robertson's  mechanics  of 
verse  structure  are  of  such  high  order  of  perfection  as  to  induce  the 
effect  of  spontaneity.  No  ticking  of  the  metrical  rote  machine  interferes 
to  mar  the  harmony  between  thought  and  sound. — San  Francisco  Call. 

Louis  A.  Robertson's  book,  "The  Dead  Calypso,"  made  him  a 
singer  of  national  note. — New  York  World. 

A  notable  feature  of  the  work  of  this  poet  is  the  near  approach  to 
perfection  of  his  poetry. — Buffalo  Courier. 

Some  of  Robertson's  sonnets  are  equal  to  the  best  in  the  English 
language. — San  Francisco  Bulletin. 

The  collection  throughout  shows  the  hand  of  a  master,  and  is  sure 
to  be  welcomed  as  a  real  contribution  to  the  poetic  literature  of  our 
country. — Trenton  Times. 

The  melody  of  the  verse  is  as  notable  as  the  warmth  of  its  fancy. — 
New  York  Times. 

His  work  has  fire  and  grit  in  it;  it  has  also  much  tenderness  and 
sadness.  It  runs  the  gamut  from  the  most  spiritual  aspiration  to  the 
rage  of  desire  defeated  in  satiety.  In  the  matter  of  form  all  the 
verses  are  exquisitely  done;  in  the  matter  of  feeling  the  intensity  is 
poignant;  always  the  song  has  color  to  it, — has  blood  and  bone  and 
flesh  woven  through  it. — St.  Louis  Mirror. 

There  are  poems  in  this  volume  of  noble  range.  Robertson  is  cer 
tainly  a  purist,  and  has  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  technique  of 
poetry.  He  is  never  guilty  of  a  false  quantity,  nor  does  he  ever  lower 
the  tone  from  its  original  setting.  He  is  one  of  the  few  poets  of  the 
day  whose  work  can  be  read  more  than  once. — San  Francisco  Post. 

Robertson's  lines  reveal  the  faculty  of  making  the  old  mythology 
real.  Like  Keats,  he  fuses  his  thought  into  an  imaginative  glow 
that  makes  the  fables  of  Greece  and  Rome  live  again  for  us  of  these 
prosaic  days.  Those  who  feel  the  sway  of  his  passion  will  recognize 
the  hand  of  a  master. — San  Francisco  Chronicle. 


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